LIBRARY 

OF  THE 

UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA. 

Deceived       JAN    16    1893     ,  189'- 
^Accessions  No.  *>0~&~f>~G ....  Class  No. 


: 


THE  POLITICS  OF  LABOR. 


PHILLIPS    THOMPSON. 


or  THE 

UNIVERSITY 


NEW   YORK  AND  CHICAGO  : 
BELFORD,    CLARKE    &    Co.,    PUBLISHERS. 

1887. 


COPYRIGHT. 

BELFOIID,  CLARKE  &  Co. 

1887. 


CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER  PAGE 

I.     INTRODUCTORY 5 

II.     THK  UPPER  AXD  THE  NETHER  MILLSTONE 21 

III.  THE  NEW  POLITICAL  ECONOMY 51 

IV.  REVOLUTION  OR  EVOLUTION 72 

V.     LABOR  AND  GOVERNMENT 91 

VI.     STEPPING-STONES 112 

VII.     STUMBLING-BLOCKS 142 

VIII.     THE  SOLIDARITY  OF  LABOR 174 

IX.     THE  STONE  WHICH  THE  BUILDERS  REJECTED 193 


I  dreamed  in  a  dream,  I  saw  a  city  invincible  to  the  attacks  of  the  whole 

of  the  rest  of  the  earth, 
I  dreamed  that  was  the  new  City  of  Friends, 
Nothing  was  greater  there  than  the  quality  of  robust  love — it  led  the 

rest, 

It  was  seen  every  hour  in  the  actions  of  the  men  of  that  city, 
And  in  all  their  looks  and  words. 

WALT.  WHITMAN. 


THE  POLITICS  OF  LABOR. 


CHAPTER  I. 

INTRODUCTORY. 

For  what  avail  the  plough  or  sail, 
Or  land  or  life,  if  freedom  fail  ? 

EMERSON. 

"  THE  Labor  question,"  as  it  is  called  for  want  of  a  better 
name,  is  simply  the  question  as  to  whether  America  shall  in 
the  future  be  a  free  democratic  land,  with  equal  rights  and 
opportunities,  as  far  as  may  be,  for  every  citizen — or  a  country 
where  the  many  are  ruled,  as  in  Europe,  by  the  privileged 
few.  It  is  no  new  question,  but  a  new  phase  of  a  very  old 
one.  ?The  rights  of  Labor  are  the  rights  of  Man.  Within 
the  last  generation  a  danger  to  American  liberty  has  mani- 
fested itself  in  the  power  of  wealth  concentrated  in  the  hands 
of  a  few,  and  the  disposition  to  use  that  power  oppressively 
and  arbitrarily  for  the  further  aggrandizement  of  its  possessors 
and  the  virtual  enslavement  of  the  mass.  Apart  from  this 
conscious  voluntary  action  on  the  part  of  the  great  money  and 
railroad  kings,  the  natural  result  of  the  increase  of  population 
under  our  existing  social  system  is  to  intensify  the  pressure  of 
competition,  to  make  opportunities  less  equal,  and  to  widen 
the  chasm  between  rich  and  poor. 

America  is  no  longer  the  land  of  promise  for  the  down- 
trodden of  the  Old  World.  The  old-time  boast  that  cer- 
tain prosperity  and  success  awaited  every  honest,  industri- 
ous, and  thrifty  man  who,  dissatisfied  with  the  cramping  and 


6  THE  POLITICS  OF  LABOR. 

hopeless  conditions  of  European  life,  made  his  home  upon  our 
shores,  has  been  sadly  falsified  by  the  experience  of  recent 
years.  We  have  become  habituated  to  the  idea  of  a  chronic 
pauperism — a  permanently  outcast  class,  once  imagined  to 
be  an  impossibility  on  the  free  soil  of  America.  And,  which  is 
perhaps  the  most  ominous  sign  of  all,  there  has  been  a  gradual 
degeneracy  of  public  opinion,  partly  owing  to  European  influ- 
ences, partly  to  the  social  changes  which  are  taking  place ;  so 
that  these  things  are  not  regarded  as  utterly  antagonistic  to 
the  spirit  of  democratic  institutions  and  inconsistent  with  and 
in  the  end  fatal  to  liberty  itself. 

Because  this  danger  comes  from  a  new  direction,  because  it 
is  closely  associated  with  undertakings  such  as  the  great  rail- 
way and  telegraph  enterprises  and  the  development  of  our 
manufactures  and  commerce,  which  have  built  up  the  mate- 
rial prosperity  of  the  country  as  a  whole,  the  public  have 
been  blind  to  its  real  significance.  Under  the  influence  of 
democratic  traditions  and  the  memories  of  the  revolutionary 
struggle,  the  vigilance  of  those  who  jealously  sought  to  guard 
American  liberty  from  assault  was  directed  without  rather  than 
within.  Monarchy,  aristocracy,  the  influence  of  foreign  gold, 
the  intrigues  of  European  statesmen,  jealous  of  the  phenom- 
enal growth  of  the  giant  republic,  have  been  not  unnatural 
objects  of  suspicion,  while  the  process  of  sapping  free  institu- 
tions by  striking  at  their  tap-root — the  independence  and  self- 
hood of  the  citizen — was  going  on  rapidly  without  objection  or 
protest  save  from  an  uninfluential  few.  Economic  formulas 
and  political  rules  of  action  inherited  from  an  age  the  require- 
ments of  which  were  widely  different  from  those  of  our  time, 
are  largely  responsible  for  this  slowness  to  recognize  indus- 
trial evils  as  coming  within  the  sphere  of  legislative  ameliora- 
tion. The  maxim  that  "  the  best  government  is  that  which 
governs  least "  was  excellent  when  population  was  sparse 
and  scattered,  when  land  was  to  be  had  for  the  asking, 
and  men's  wants  were  simple  and  for  the  most  part  supplied 
by  themselves  or  their  immediate  neighbors.  It  is  a  mislead- 
ing anachronism  in  these  days  of  steam  and  electricity,  of  com- 


THE  POLITICS  OF  LABOR.  7 

plicated  and  clashing  interests,  of  vast  wealth  and  abject 
poverty,  of  giant  corporations  and  swollen  city  populations, 
dependent  for  their  very  existence  on  the  working  of  the  so- 
cial mechanism  of  exchange  and  transportation.  The  framers 
of  the  American  constitution  were  wise  in  their  day.  It  is  no 
discredit  to  their  memory  to  say  that  they  were  not  omnis. 
cient,  and  that  by  no  possible  exercise  of  human  sagacity  could 
they  have  foreseen  the  revolution  in  industry  and  commerce 
which  has  since  taken  place,  or  provided  against  the  social 
abuses  and  dangers  accompanying  it.  Fidelity  to  their  teach- 
ing and  example  demands  not  the  blind  perpetuation  of  an 
outgrown  system  because  they  adopted  it  as  best  suited  to 
the  needs  of  their  time,  but  rather  that  the  questions  of  to-day 
should  be  dealt  with  in  their  spirit — resolutely  faced  and 
grappled  with  as  they  would  have  faced  and  grappled  with 
them. 

When  Oliver  Cromwell  was  at  the  height  of  his  power  as 
Protector  of  the  Commonwealth  of  England,  an  anonymous 
pamphlet  appeared  under  the  title  of  "Killing  no  Murder"*/ 
which  struck  terror  even  into  that  strong  sagacious  soul  by 
its  menacing  invective.  "  Shall  we,  "  asked  the  writer,  "  who 
would  not  suffer  the  lion  to  invade  us,  tamely  stand  and  be 
devoured  by  the  wolf  ?  " 

That  is  the  question  which  now  confronts  the  people  of 
the  American  continent.  Will  the  nation  that  defied  kingly 
tyranny  and  overthrew  the  slaveholding  aristocracy,  tamely 
submit  to  see  their  institutions  perverted,  their  blood-bought 
freedom  destroyed,  and  a  system  .of  the  meanest  and  most 
hateful  class-supremacy  established  upon  its  ruins  ? 

To  all  human  appearance  we  are  on  the  verge  of  a  great 
crisis.  Political  freedom  cannot  long  co-exist  with  industrial 
serfdom.  The  new  wine  of  Democracy  cannot  be  put  into 
the  old  bottles  of  social  inequality  and  caste  privilege  with- 
out disaster. 

The  industrial  revolution  has  already  begun.  Though  the 
issues  as  yet  are  far  from  being  clearly  defined,  or  the  lines 
which  will  finally  divide  the  contestants  in  the  coming  struggle 


8  THE  POLITICS  OF  LABOR. 

drawn  with  any  degree  of  precision,  Labor  has  had  its  Bleed- 
ing Kansas  and  its  Harper's  Ferry  many  times  over  in  the 
armed  conflicts  between  the  desperate  and  starving  working- 
men  and  the  mercenary  cohorts  of  capitalism,  which  are  now  of 
such  frequent  recurrence  that  they  attract  but  little  attention. 
It  has  its  Lloyd  Garrisons  and  Wendell  Phillipses  of  the  press 
and  platform,  whose  pleading  for  justice  and  exposition  of 
right,  however  forcibly  and  eloquently  urged,  are  as  contemptu- 
ously pooh-poohed  by  the  sleek  and  shallow  optimists,  and 
the  wealthy  and  well-to-do  classes  who  create  public  opinion, 
as  were  the  protests  of  their  predecessors  against  chattel 
slavery.  /And  latterly  the  question  has  taken  on  a  new  phase 
by  the  appearance,  in  the  forum  of  public  discussion,  of  a 
numerous  and  influential  class  of  professed  sympathizers  with 
Labor,  who  preach  compromise  and  conciliation — who  propose 
palliatives,  mutual  concessions,  and  the  alleviation  of  the 
symptoms  of  the  social  malady.  Actuated  no  doubt  by  the  best 
motives,  but  ludicrously  ignorant  of  the  real  causes  of  poverty 
and  suffering  among  the  wage-workers,  they  propound  such 
maxims  as  "  Labor  and  Capital  allies,  not  enemies,"  "  Prop- 
erty has  its  duties  as  well  as  its  rights,  "  and  urge  employers 
to  treat  their  working-people  justly,  to  refrain  from  taking 
advantage  of  the  iron  law  of  competition,  to  keep  up  the  rate 
of  wages  and  "  make  work  "  in  slack  times  rather  than  dis- 
charge their  employes — advice  as  utterly  futile,  even  though 
it  were  followed,  to  permanently  abate  the  evils  of  a  bad 
system,  as  the  kindly  treatment  of  slaves  by  many  of  their 
masters  was  to  justify  negro  slavery. 

The  very  form  in  which  these"  conciliatory  teachings  are 
epitomized  shows  how  far  we  have  unconsciously  drifted  from 
genuine  Democracy.  "  Capital " — property  is  spoken  of  as  a 
distinct  force  and  factor  in  social  organization — a  sort  of  dis- 
tinct estate  of  the  realm  as  they  would  say  in  England,  with 
a  status  of  its  own  apart  from  the  great  body  of  the  common- 
wealth. Dead,  inert  matter,  supposed  to  endow  its  owner 
with  other  rights,  duties,  and  prerogatives  than  those  attaching 
to  him  as  a  man  and  a  citizen  ! 


THE  POLITICS  OF  LABOR.  9 

Change  the  phrase  and  the  undemocratic  character  of  the 
assumption  that  property  or  capital,  as  such,  ought  to  be  re- 
garded as  a  distinct  interest  apart  from,  if  not  superior  to, 
labor  will  be  at  mace  apparent.  /  "  Rank  has  its  duties  as  well 
as  its  rights."/*' Aristocracy  and  labor  allies,  not  enemies." 
The  complete  incongruity  of  the  idea  with  the  fundamental 
principles  of  Democracy  strikes  one  at  the  first  glance.  Such 
an  utterance  would  excite  the  strongest  opposition  as  a  reac- 
tionary sentiment  entirely  at  variance  with  the  spirit  of  free 
institutions.  /Y et  what  is  "  capital,"  when  the  word  is  used 
in  the  sense  above  implied,  but  the  aristocracy  of  money  ? 

/No  !  Property  has  neither  rights  nor  duties  !  Labor  and 
capital  are  not  and  ought  not  to  be  "  allies  "  ;  because  capital 
is  merely  the  thing  created  by  labor;  the  instrument  which 
should  be  under  its  control,  not  the  force  to  direct  it. 

It  is  necessary,  in  order  to  have  a  clear  understanding  of 
the  proper  relations  between  labor  and  capital,  to  discriminate 
between  capital  as  an  instrument  and  capitalism  as  a  force. 
Many  of  the  arguments  by  which  the  existing  industrial  system 
is  supported  are  simply  a  play  upon  words,  "capital"  being 
used  in  a  double  sense.  Primarily  it  signifies  those  accu- 
mulations of  the  product  of  labor  used  for  further  production. 
Factory  buildings,  machinery,  iron  ore,  raw  cotton,  seed  wheat, 
threshing  machines,  these  are  all  forms  of  capital  as  well  as 
the  money  in  the  bank  which  the  employer  draws  to  pay  his 
workingmen  their  wages.  No  one  doubts  the  value  or,  practi- 
cally speaking,  the  necessity  of  capital,  in  these  and  like  forms, 
to  industrial  progress.  But  "  capital,"  as  the  term  is  ordi- 
narily used  in  politico-economical  discussion,  implies  a  great 
deal  more  than  this.  When  men  speak  of  the  rights  of  capital, 
the  conflict  between  capital  and  labor,  etc.,  they  refer  to  the 
power  which  the  possession  or  control  of  capital  gives  to  a 
small  minority  of  the  community  of  regulating  how  much 
labor  shall  receive  of  what  it  produces — to  the  special  interest 
of  the  accumulator  of  labor  products  in  the  result  of  further 
productive  industry.  They  quibble  on  the  word  capital, 
sometimes  using  it  in  the  material  and  strictly  correct  sense 


10  THE  POLITICS  OF  LABOR. 

when  they  wish  to  prove  how  helpless  labor  is  without  it,  and 
on  the  admitted  necessity  of  capital  as  an  instrument  and  a 
creation,  basing  their  argument  for  the  necessity  of  capital  as 
a  controlling  force  and  a  creator. 

Capital,  properly  so  called,  is  a  beneficent  auxiliary  to  Labor 
in  the  work  of  production.  Capitalism,  or  the  control  by 
means,  firstly,  of  monopolizing  resources  and,  secondly,  of  com- 
petition among  workers,  which  the  possessors  of  capital  ex- 
ercise over  the  distribution  of  products  and  the  general  regu- 
lation of  industry,  is  a  wrong,  a  usurpation,  and  a  growing 
menace  to  popular  freedom. 

Labor  is  just  as  much  interested  in  the  maintenance  of  cap- 
italism, that  is  to  say,  the  supremacy  of  capital,  as  the  slave 
was  in  the  perpetuation  of  the  slave  power. 

A  large  class  of  superficial  observers,  who,  as  long  as  it  was 
possible,  ignored  the  prevalent  feeling  of  dissatisfaction  among 
the  working  people,  now  seek  to  belittle  it.  They  do  not  be- 
lieve that  any  crisis  is  approaching — that  the  deep-seated  un- 
rest of  those  upon  whom  the  competitive  system  presses 
hardly  has  any  special  significance.  "It  has  always  been 
so,"  they  tell  us.  "  It  is  the  old  story — as  old  as  human  society 
itself.  It  is  natural  that  as  America  takes  on  more  and  more 
the  condition  of  older  countries,  the  volume  of  poverty  should 
increase  and  its  cry  be  more  loudly  raised.  But  there  is  no 
reason  to  suppose  that  the  labor  movement  will  lead  to  any 
other  result  than  the  chronic  agitations  among  the  working 
classes  of  the  Old  World.  All  old  countries  have  their  pe- 
riods of  social  disquietude  and  upheaval.  We  must  expect 
these  phenomena,  but  they  do  not  necessarily  imply  an  indus- 
trial revolution." 

The  study  of  history  is  frequently  misleading.  Those  who 
attempt  to  "  unlock  the  future's  portal  with  the  past's  blood- 
rusted  key,"  and  to  reason  by  analogies  drawn  from  history, 
are  apt  to  leave  out  of  account  the  factors  of  the  problem  which 
are  of  later  growth,  to  overlook  the  changed  conditions  which 
render  the  parallel  incomplete  and  deceptive.  The  result  of 
the  present  agitation  cannot  be  inferred  from  the  familiar  ex- 


THE  POLITICS  OF  LABOR.  11 

am  pies  of  the  uprisings  headed  by  Jack  Cade  and  Wat  Tyler, 
the  peasants'  war  in  Germany,  the  Jacquerie,  or  the  French 
Revolution.  The  book-learned  ignorance  of  those  who  have 
read  a  great  deal  more  than  they  have  thought,  which  assumes 
that,  because  in  the  past  labor  agitations  and  popular  upheavals 
have  not  secured  any  permanent,  satisfactory  adjustment  of 
the  question,  no  such  adjustment  is  possible,  loses  sight  of 
three  important  respects  in  which  modern  and  especially 
American  social  unrest  is  unlike  all  historical  examples. 

1.  The  discontent  of  our  day  is  an  educated  discontent. 
Owing  to  universal  free  education,  the  American  working-man 
has  at  all  events  the  rudiments  of  a  common-school  education. 
He  reads  the  newspaper  even  if  he  reads  nothing  else,  and  brings 
a  shrewd,  keen-witted  intelligence  to  bear  upon  every  fact  or 
opinion  which  has  any  direct  relation  to  his  position  and  live- 
lihood. The  wonderful  enterprise  and  ever-broadening  scope 
of  the  modern  press  enlarge  the  circle  of  his  ideas  and  sym- 
pathies. He  learns  something  of  the  great  truth  of  the  mutual 
dependence  on  each  other  of  the  different  forms  of  industry 
and  the  workings  of  the  mechanism  of  exchange  and  transit. 
He  begins  to  understand  that  the  "  Labor  question "  is  not 
simply  a  difference  between  himself  and  his  employer  as  to 
the  amount  which  he  ought  to  receive  as  wages,  but  that  there 
are  a  hundred  other  considerations  entering  into  the  subject, 
apart  from  his  employer's  ability  or  willingness  to  comply  with 
his  demands  or  his  own  power  to  enforce  them  by  combination. 
If  he  be  an  intelligent,  thoughtful  man  he  is  able  to  trace  the 
various  causes  of  social  and  industrial  evils,  to  know  the  why 
and  the  wherefore  of  the  growing  inequalities  which  exist.  He 
knows  how  he  is  robbed  and  by  whom.  The  coal-miners  of 
western  Pennsylvania,  for  instance,  receive  wages  according  to 
a  sliding-scale  based  upon  the  selling  price  of  the  coal  at  Pitts- 
burg.  Every  miner  consequently  studies  the  market  reports 
and  watches  intently  the  fluctuations  of  price,  not  only  at  the 
trade  center,  but  at  remoter  points,  as  the  barometer  which  in- 
dicates the  rise  or  fall  of  his  scanty  wages.  This  is  a  training 
in  itself  more  valuable  than  the  theoretical  teaching  of  half  a 


12  THE  POLITICS  OF  LABOR. 

dozen  professors  of  political  economy.  He  understands  how 
his  position  is  affected  by  the  relation  between  demand  and 
supply.  He  knows  almost  to  a  cent  just  what  proportion  of 
the  price  paid  by  the  consumer  comes  to  him  as  wages  and 
what  goes  into  the  pockets  of  mine  operators,  railroad  com- 
panies, and  wholesale  and  retail  dealers,  and  can  trace  the  ef- 
fect of  rings  and  deals  among  these  classes  upon  prices  and 
wages.  The  cotton  operative  in  Fall  River  or  Lowell,  who 
can  hardly  keep  body  and  soul  together  on  the  miserable  pit- 
tance received  in  that  highly-protected,  but  most  wretchedly 
paid,  of  American  industries ;  the  street-railway  conductor 
whose  exhausting  hours  allow  him  barely  time  for  the  animal 
requirements  of  food  and  sleep  ;  though  they  are  robbed  are 
no  longer  robbed  in  the  dark.  The  profits  and  the  dividends 
of  the  wealthy  corporations  employing  them  are  published  in 
the  newspapers.  \  The  wage-workers  know  that  the  reason  why 
they  are  poor  is  because  so  large  a  share  of  their  earnings  goes 
to  make  others  rich.  The  saving,  industrious  mechanic  who 
has,  by  dint  of  hard  toil  and  frugality,  scraped  together  a  few 
hundred  dollars  in  the  hope  of  becoming  his  own  landlord,  and 
finds  that  owing  to  the  high  price  at  which  land  is  held  the 
purchase  is  not  within  his  means,  sees  the  speculator  grow 
prosperous  by  the  system  that  keeps  him  poor.  He  reads  year 
after  year  of  the  increase  of  rents,  and  is  made  familiar  with 
the  growth  of  what  is  really  a  landed  aristocracy — a  class  of 
enormously  wealthy  idlers  whose  resources  are  wrung  from 
industry  in  the  shape  of  a  continuously  increasing  burden  on 
the  occupants  of  land.  The  American  press  gives  a  degree  of 
publicity  to  the  actions  of  prominent  men,  the  doings  of 
important  corporations  and  syndicates,  and  the  movements 
which  influence  legislation  unknown  in  any  other  country. 
When  a  man  becomes  either  sufficiently  wealthy  or  sufficient- 
ly prominent  in  political  or  business  affairs  to  attract  general 
interest,  his  every  movement  is  scrutinized  by  the  watchful 
eye  of  the  reporter  or  special  correspondent,  "  set  in  a  note- 
book, learned  and  conned  by  rote,"  and  blazoned  forth  in  the 
newspaper.  If  a  millionaire  makes  a  large  investment,  gives 


THE  POLITICS  OF  LABOR.  13 

a  banquet,  puts  up  a  new  mansion,  or  takes  a  journey,  the  in- 
satiable public  demand  full  particulars,  and  his  purposes  are 
everywhere  canvassed  and  criticized.  If  a  syndicate  or  cap- 
italist enters  the  stock  market,  buys  a  mine  or  a  cattle  ranch, 
corners  pork  or  petroleum,  or  makes  a  political  deal  at  Washing- 
ton or  Albany,  the  remorseless  interviewer  discloses  the  whole 
transaction.  No  important  move  in  political,  financial,  or  social 
affairs  can  now  be  made  without  becoming  known  to  a  nation  of 
newspaper  readers.  Matters  which  in  Europe  would  be  done  in 
a  corner  and  never  become  known  beyond  a  select  circle,  are  the 
common  topics  of  the  readers  of  our  one-cent  journals.  The 
tendency  of  this  publicity  is  to  throw  light  on  the  methods  by 
which  industry  is  defrauded,  to  educate  the  mass  in  a  knowledge 
of  the  causes  of  poverty,  and  to  suggest  to  thinking  minds  the 
adequate  remedies. 

How  different  was  the  condition  in  this  respect  of  the  Euro- 
pean artisan  or  peasant,  whose  blind  and  desperate  struggles 
against  oppression  are  referred  to  as  prototypes  of  the 
modern  labor  movement!  Ignorant  and  untutored,  his 
knowledge  of  the  world  was  narrowed  to  his  immedi- 
ate surroundings;  whatever  in  the  way  of  instruction  he 
received  inculcated  content  with  his  lot  and  submission 
to  his  superiors.  Inequality  of  conditions  he  accepted 
as  a  matter  of  course — a  feature  of  a  divinely  ordained 
system  under  which  kings  and  lords,  priests  and  landowners, 
were  born  to  rule  and  to  enjoy  the  good  things  of  life,  while 
he  was  born  to  toil  and  endure  "in  that  station  of  life  to 
which  it  had  pleased  God  to  call  him,"  as  the  Episcopal 
catechism  has  it.  To  him  it  seemed  perfectly  natural  that 
society  should  be  divided  into  classes  and  grades,  and  that  the 
higher  class  should  have  a  profusion  of  comforts  and  luxuries 
without  anxiety  or  labor.  He  took  his  place  uncomplain- 
ingly as  an  inferior.  It  was  not  inequality  which  he  resented, 
but  absolute  privation.  If  the  great  truth  that  all  men  have 
equal  rights  dawned  at  intervals  upon  some  bolder  and  more 
enlightened  minds,  it  was  but  the  dire  physical  necessities  of 
the  jnass  w^ic!}  gave  their  teachinj^s^jyemporary  acceptance. 


14  THE  POLITICS  OF  LABOE. 

It  was  the  cravings  of  hunger  and  the  passion  for  revenge  of 
men  driven  mad  by  oppression  which  steeled  their  hearts  and 
nerved  their  arms ;  not  the  clear,  intelligent  perception  of  the 
causes  of  their  misery. 

2.  The  American  working-class  possess  political  power,  and 
are  coming  to  the  determination  to  use  it  in  their  own  inter- 
ests.    The  means  of  an  ample  and  absolute  redress  of  every 
wrong  is  within  their  own  hands.  That  they  have  not  hitherto 
availed  themselves  of  it  to  any  extent  is  due  to  a  variety  of 
causes.  Among  the  principal  may  be  enumerated  the  strength 
of  old  party  associations  and  lines  of  cleavage  based  upon  past 
issues,  the  force  of  the  laissez  faire  tradition,   difference  of 
opinion  as   to  the   course   to  be  pursued,   dependence  upon 
political   nostrums,   palliatives,   and    trivial    concessions   by 
politicians  to  "  capture  the  labor  vote,"  and  bribery  and  in- 
timidation   exercised   by    employers.      The    old    school   of 
Democracy  were  apt  to  look  upon  the  ballot  as  an  end  rather 
than  a  means,  to  imagine  that  all  the  social  problems,  if  not 
solved,,  were  placed  in  the  way  of  solution  by  manhood  suf- 
frage. *  We  are  only  just  beginning  to  realize  that  the  fran- 
chise is,  after    all,  merely  an    instrument    and  not  intrinsi- 
cally a  cure-all.    Unless  it  be  used  honestly  and  intelligently 
its  mere  possession  is  not  only  no  benefit  but  a  positive  detri- 
ment ;  as  it  enables  corrupt  and  self-seeking  rulers  to  do  in  the 
name    of   the    people    actions  which    an    irresponsible  non- 
elective  government  might  shrink  from. 

Labor  is  just  awakening  to  a  dim  consciousness  of  its  politi- 
cal strength.  Hitherto,  like  a  shorn  and  blinded  Samson,  it  has 
ground  in  the  prison-house  of  partyism,  the  mock  and  sport  of 
its  despoilers.  The  time  approaches  when  the  aroused  giant 
will  put  forth  his  long  wasted  energies  and  level  to  the  dust 
the  strongholds  of  oppression. 

3.  Never  before  in  the  world's  history  was  there  any  parallel 
to  the  thoroughness  of  organization  which  now  obtains  among 
the  laboring  classes  of  America.     The  idea  of  the  solidarity  of 
Labor  has  taken   firm  root.     The   old   trade  unions,  admir- 
able in  their  way  as  a  step  in  advance,  and  temporarily  useful 


THE  POLITICS  OF  LABOR.  15 

as  a  defence  against  acts  of  oppression  on  the  part  of  in- 
dividual employers,  though  powerless  to  deal  with  the  deep- 
seated  and  widespread  causes  of  social  disquiet,  are  rapidly- 
being  superseded  by  or  merged  into  more  comprehensive 
organizations — the  order  of  the  Knights  of  Labor,  trades 
federations,  central  labor  unions,  and  similar  bodies.  Their 
design  is  to  weld  labor  into  a  compact  mass,  and  to  confront 
capitalism  with  the  locked  shields  and  levelled  lances  of  a 
Pyrrhic  phalanx  instead  of  leaving  the  isolated  bodies  to  be 
beaten  in  detail! 

;Based  on  the  principle  that  "  an  injury  to  one  is  the  con- 
cern of  all,"  this  newer  form  of  labor  organization  seeks  to 
deal  with  the  concentrated  and  organized  power  of  capitalism 
by  uniting  those  whose  common  interests  and  common  rights 
are  menaced  by  its  encroachments.  They  are  looking  more 
and  more  to  the  ultimate  causes  of  the  subjection  of  labor,  and 
less  to  the  relations  between  the  working-man  and  his  im- 
mediate employer,  which  were  all  that  the  old  trade  unions 
took  account  of.  The  leaders  and  the  more  intelligent  members 
of  these  bodies  see  very  clearly  that  reformatory  measures,  to 
be  effective,  must  be  co-extensive  with  the  wide-reaching 
agencies  and  influences  which  operate  adversely  to  Labor- 
Realizing  that  the  great  productive,  commercial,  financial,  and 
transportation  interests  are  firmly  linked  and  interlaced  to- 
gether in  a  vast  and  complicated  network  closely  allied  with 
the  controlling  influences  in  politics,  they  understand  that 
the  struggles  of  small  and  isolated  bands  of  workers  against 
special  local  grievances  are  as  futile  as  the  resistance  of  a 
tribe  of  Indians  to  the  advancing  outposts  of  settlement.  In 
either  case  a  temporary  victory  may  be  won.  But  just  as 
surely  as  the  onward  march  of  civilization,  the  immense 
slowly  moving  force  behind  the  pioneer  and  the  squatter,  in 
the  end  drives  out  and  exterminates  the  savage,  so  the  capi- 
talistic system,  despite  an  occasional  repulse  at  the  immediate 
point  of  contact,  ultimately  hems  round,  outflanks,  and  by  in- 
direct and  almost  imperceptible  advances  weakens  the  power 
of  resistance  of  the  worker,  and  finally  crushes  him  down  to  a 
lower  standard  of  living. 


16  THE  POLITICS  OF  LABOR. 

The  organization  of  labor  on  a  large  scale"  foF  protective 
purposes  is  the  natural  result  of  its  more  perfect  organization 
industrially.     When  men  of  the  same  trade   are  massed  to- 
gether by  the  thousand ;    when  single  establishments  have  an 
army  of  employes  under  a  minute  and  thorough  system  of 
discipline  and  organization,  the  circumstances  are  obviously 
more  favorable  to  combination  among  working-men  for  their 
own  interests  than  when  shops   and  factories   were  small  and 
widely  scattered.     The  common  interest  is  much  more  ap- 
parent ;  the  opportunities  for  intimate  acquaintance,  for  inter- 
change of  opinions,  for  frequent  gathering  and  discussion  are 
far  greater.     The  whole  matter  is  infinitely  simplified.     Com- 
bination among  capitalists  tends  to  abolish  the  last  lingering 
belief  that  labor  and  capitalism  have  interests  in  common. 
When  competition  between  employers  had  full  swing  there 
was  a  certain  foundation  for  this  idea.     Whatever  the  points 
of  disagreement  between  employers  and  men,  each  shop  or 
factory,  considered  as  a  unit,  had  an  esprit  de  corps.     When 
one  was  trying  to  undersell  the  other  or  turn  out  goods  more 
quickly  to  meet  the  demand,  the  spirit  of  rivalry  between  one 
set  of  employes  and  the    other  naturally  militated  to  some 
extent  against  union  among  laborers.     There  was  of  course 
the  ever-present  discontent  with  an  arrangement  under  which 
capital  drew  the  lion's  share  of  the  product,  but  the  com- 
munity of  interest,  as  against  the  competing  establishments, 
was  a  powerful  counteracting  influence.     The  employer's  ever- 
ready  argument,  "  How  can  I  raise  wages   or  shorten  hours 
without  placing  myself  at  a  disadvantage  ?  "  was  much  more 
plausible  and  effective  than  it  is  at  present,  when  "  combina- 
tion,  not  competition"  is  the  watchword  among  employers. 
Manufacturers  combine  to  fix  selling  prices  and  limit  produc- 
tion.   Mining  operators  secure  themselves  against  competition 
by  regulating  the  output  and  the  price.     The  great  railroad 
interests,  by  means  of  pooling  arrangements,  amalgamations, 
and  leases,  are  continually  being  concentrated  in  fewer  hands. 
Everywhere  the  working-man  sees  going  on  around  him  the 
same  process  not  merely  of  accumulating  wealth,  but  the  weld- 


THE  POLITICS  OF  LABOR.  17 

ing  together,  as  with  links  of  steel,  of  the  forces  of  capital  under 
the  mastery  of  which  the  industrial  system  becomes  an  enor- 
mous machine.  The  organization  and  concentration  of  capital- 
ism thus  gives  the  impulse,  sets  the  example,  and  removes  the 
obstacles  to  organization  and  concentration  of  labor. 

These  considerations  ought  to  convince  every  thoughtful 
student  of  the  problem,  that  the  labor  question,  as  it  now 
presents  itself,  has  so  little  in  common  with  past  phases  of 
popular  discontent  or  outbreak,  which  may  seem  to  present  a 
superficial  resemblance  to  it  in  some  particulars,  that  history 
affords  no  clue  to  the  probable  issue. 

We  are  living  in  a  transition  period.  The  influences  above 
enumerated  as  placing  American  working-men  in  a  specially 
favorable  position  for  securing  their  rights,  have  only  begun 
to  operate  in  the  direction  of  social  reconstruction — in  some 
of  their  phases  they  have  been  distinctly  antagonistic.  "  Knowl- 
edge comes,  but  wisdom  lingers."  'Education,  for  instance, 
while  immensely  increasing  the  power  of  the  working-class  for 
effective  combination,  if  perverted  by  the  inculcation  of  the 
untruths  and  half-truths  of  bourgeois  political  economy,  is  a 
hindrance  rather  than  a  help.  Political  power,  if  misdirected 
to  the  furtherance  of  the  ends  of  partisans  who  are  the  tools  of 
capitalism,  is  worse  than  wasted  ;  because,  in  the  first  place,  it 
lends  the  authority  of  the  popular  vote  to  the  usurpations  of 
monopoly ;  and  secondly,  because  by  raising  false  cries  and  ral- 
lying the  people  into  opposing  parties  divided  on  trivial  or  ex- 
tinct issues,  it  diverts  their  attention  from  questions  of  para- 
mount importance.  The  comparison  between  the  position  of  the 
American  laborer  as  affected  by  education,  the  ballot,  and  or- 
ganization, and  that  of  the  toilers  elsewhere  and  in  other  times, 
refers  to  the  possibilities  suggested  by  the  possession  of  these 
powers — not  to  the  slight  and  temporary  ameliorations  of  his 
condition  hitherto  secured  by  their  means. 

To  direct  these  forces  aright — to  secure  unity  of  aim  and 
harmony  in  methods  among  all  who  realize  the  supreme  ur- 
gency of  the  labor  problem — to  indoctrinate  the  masses  with 
large  ancj.  comprehensive  views  of  the  causes  of  industrial 

2 


1 8  THE  POLITICS  OF  LABOR. 

evils  and  their  remedies-4to  substitute  for  a  blind  unreason- 
ing sense  of  personal  wrong  and  the  desire  for  individual  ad- 
vancement the  loftier  conception  of  a  system  based  on  justice 
and  equal  rights  to  all — to  arouse  the  deadened  intellects  *and 
the  torpid  consciences  of  the  comfortable  class,  drugged  by 
the  sophistries  of  a  misleading  political  economy,  appealing 
to  their -selfish  interests — to  regenerate  the  whole  tone  and 
temper  of  public  opinion  and  bring  it  to  bear  upon  the  forces 
of  capitalism  in  their  thousandfold  ramifications  through  every 
fiber  of  national  life,  to  the  end  "  that  government  of  the 
people,  by  the  people,  and  for  the  people  may  not  perish  from 
the  earth  " — such  is  the  task  which  confronts  the  Labor  Re- 
formers of  America — such  the  object  towards  which  the  pres- 
ent writer  hopes,  in  however  small  a  degree,  to  contribute.  \ 

Hitherto,  from  causes  to  which  reference  has  been  made,  the 
labor  struggle  presents  to  the  merely  superficial  observer 
a  spectacle  of  wasted  opportunities  and  unused  powers — of 
heroism  and  endurance  misdirected — of  lavish  expenditure 
for  temporary  and  trivial  objects — of  energy  and  self-sacrifice 
squandered  in  attempts  to  gain  insignificant  ameliorations — of 
isolated  advances  at  some  few  points,  followed  by  gradual  re- 
treat all  along  the  line  before  the  power  of  concentrated  and 
organized  wealth.  What  has  been  gained  thus  far  is  almost 
altogether  in  the  way  of  preparation.  In  so  far  as  the  efforts 
hitherto  made  have  been  educational  in  their  result,  so  far  as 
they  have  effected  the  disciplining  of  the  hosts  of  labor,  so 
far  as  they  have  had  a  tendency  to  dissipate  the  prejudices 
and  antagonisms  of  party,  creed,  and  nationality  which  have 
stood  in  the  way  of  union,  they  have  been  invaluable  as  a 
preliminary  training  for  the  final  encounter  on  a  broader  scale. 
Whatever  of  apparent  failure  and  defeat  has  attended  the  agi- 
tation was  inevitable  in  view  of  the  very  nature  of  the  con- 
flict, the  obstacles  to  be  encountered,  and  the  forces  ranged 
on  the  side  of  capitalism.  If  much  has  been  learned,  more 
has  to  be  unlearned.  \Olcl  and  deeply-rooted  ideas  of  govern- 
ment and  social  organization  are  to  be  overthrown.  Preju- 
dices tenaciously  adhered  to  must  be  removed,  False  notions 


THE  POLITICS  OF  LABOR.  19 

as  to  the  relations  between  labor  and  capitalism,  the  functions 
of  the  state  and  the  rights  of  property,  which  have  become 
part  of  the  mental  constitution  of  the  race,  have  to  be  eradi- 
cated. )  And  differences  of  opinion  and  antagonistic  methods 
of  action  among  those  who  are  honestly  striving  according  to 
their  lights  for  the  improvement  of  social  conditions  are  to  be 
reconciled,  and  whole-heartedness  of  purpose  and  steadiness  of 
aim  substituted  for  intermittent  and  badly  directed  enthu- 
siasm. 

A  work  of  such  magnitude  is  not  to  be  accomplished  by  any 
one  man  or  any  generation  of  men.  It  must  essentially  be  a 
work  of  slow  and  gradual  accomplishment.  It  cannot  be 
brought  about  by  any  ready-made  scheme  for  the  reconstruc- 
tion of  society  to  be  suddenly  imposed  upon  men  whose  feel- 
ings, wishes,  and  ideals  are  not  in  harmony  with  it.!  Instead 
of  dogmatizing  as  to  the  ultimate  form  of  social  re-adjustment, 
the  immediate  thing  to  be  done  is  to  procure  the  acceptance 
of  the  principles  which  must  underlie  effective  reform,  and  to 
indicate  the  general  direction  in  which  lies  the  path  of  prog- 
ress ;  to  educate  the  people  up  to  a  consciousness  of  their 
true  interest  and  a  knowledge  of  the  powers  within  their 
grasp;  to  accept  every  plan  which  seems  to  have  in  it  the 
promise  of  substantial  good  tentatively,  and  nothing  as  a 
finality,  j 

^Thought  crystallizes  slowly  on  great  issues.  In  occupying 
ourselves  too  exclusively  with  ideals  of  the  social  regenera- 
tion of  the  future,  it  is  possible  to  overlook  the  imme- 
diate practical  issues  which  may  be  the  stepping-stones  to 
broader  and  more  comprehensive  reforms.  Every  Labor  Re- 
former should  be  willing  to  aid  in  any  movement  which  seems 
to  be  in  the  general  line  of  advancement,  whether  it  is  ex- 
actly in  accord  with  his  pet  theories  or  not.  If  it  succeeds 
and  the  results  prove  favorable,  he  will  have  reason 
to  change  his  opinion.  If,  on  the  contrary,  it  proves  im- 
practicable or  does  not  work  beneficially,  the  experiment 
removes  another  stumbling-block  and  simplifies  the  problem. 
For  instance,  the  failure  of  the  so-called  protective  tariff 


20  THE  POLITICS  OF  LABOR. 

to  protect  labor  plainly  shows  that  not  in  that  direction 
must  the  remedy  for  industrial  evils  be  looked  for.  Had  the 
experiment  not  been  tried  the  labor  movement  might  now  be 
taking  the  form  of  an  agitation  for  tariff  protection.  No 
great  invention  ever  attained  perfection  at  one  bound.  The 
history  of  all  social  or  political  systems  is  that  of  a  series  of 
experiments  now  in  this  direction,  now  in  that.  Here  evolu- 
tion, there  revolution,  schemes  for  more  perfect  working 
brought  to  failure  one  after  the  other,  until  a  partial  success 
is  obtained ;  then  another  re-adjustment  of  conditions  followed 
by  a  break-down  from  a  defect  in  the  mechanism.  Then  more 
amendments,  more  experiments,  until,  little  by  little,  the 
system  approaches  perfection.  A  slow,  a  very  slow,  toilsome, 
uphill  process.  Is  there  cause  for  discouragement  in  the  pros- 
pect ?  Is  not  this  the  mode  by  which  anything  of  great  and 
permanent  value  of  man's  invention  has  been  produced? 
How  many  hundred  trials  and  experiments,  how  many  ap- 
parent failures,  how  many  improvements  and  alterations  by 
one  inventor  after  another  were  necessary  before  the  steam- 
engine  arrived  at  its  present  stage  of  perfection  ?  Think  you 
a  perfect  social  state  is  easier  to  create  than  a  perfect  steam- 
engine  ? 

"  It  is  with  true  opinions  courageously  uttered,"  said 
Goethe,  "  as  with  pawns  first  advanced  on  the  chess-board, 
they  may  be  beaten,  but  they  have  inaugurated  a  game  which 
must  be  won." 


THE  POLITICS  OF  LABOR.  21 


CHAPTER  II. 

THE  UPPER  AND   THE    NETHER  MILLSTONE. 

See  yonder  poor  o'erlabored  wight, 

So  abject,  mean,  and  vile, 
Who  begs  a  brother  of  the  earth 

To  give  him  leave  to  toil ; 
And  see  his  lordly  fellow-worm 

The  poor  petition  spurn, 
Unmindful  though  a  weeping  wife 

And  helpless  offspring  mourn. 

BURNS. 

ONE  of  the  most  formidable  difficulties,  in  the  way  of  clearness 
of  thought,  on  the  labor  question,  is  the  lack  of  appropriate  terms 
in  the  English  language  to  express  the  ideas  suggested  by 
new  social  and  industrial  developments.  Reference  has  already 
been  made  to  the  double  sense  in  which  the  word  "  capital" 
is  customarily  employed,  and  the  confusion  arising  from  the 
use  of  the  same  term  to  express  the  accumulated  wealth 
used  in  production,  and  the  powers,  interests,  and  privileges 
claimed  by  its  possessors.  A  like  difficulty  confronts  us 
when  we  seek  to  characterize  by  a  word  or  phrase  the  existing 
system,  so  as  to  convey  at  once  the  idea  of  fthe  monopoly  of 
resources  by  the  few,  and  competition  among  the  many  for 
the  means  of  livelihood.  There  is  no  word  in  the  language 
which  will  answer.  There  is  none  even  approaching  the 
meaning  sought  to  be  expressed,  and  the  writer  has  either  to 
resort  to  a  clumsy  periphrasis,  lacking  in  point  and  unavail- 
able for  frequent  repetition,  or  to  confine  himself  to  vague 
generalities  of  expression,  such  as  "the  existing  industrial 
system,"  which  call  up  no  clear  and  tangible  idea  of  its  salient 
features.  The  word  "  monopoly  "  has  of  late  been  much  in 
vogue,  having  been  wrenched  from  its  original  meaning — 
that  of  a  privilege  granted  to  a  single  individual — in  order  to 
fill  a  gap  in  the  language.  But  to  speak  of  the  monopoly 
system  only  conveys  half  the  idea.  Monopoly,  of  itself, 


22  THE  POLITICS  OF  LABOR. 

while  an  injustice  and  a  wrong  to  the  community  by  enriching 
a  few  individuals  at  the  expense  of  the  whole,  would  not  nec- 
essarily produce  the  extreme  deprivation  and  suffering  to 
which  large  classes  are  now  subject.  It  is  monopoly  in  the 
broad  sense  of  the  word,  combined  with  absolute  and  unre- 
stricted competition  among  the  wage-earners,  which  causes 
this  result.  Monopoly  above  and  competition  below  are  the 
upper  and  nether  millstones  between  which  the  toiler  is 
crushed. 

That  the  social  crime  which  condemns  so  large  a  proportion 
of  the  community  to  perpetual  poverty  should  be — like  Dun- 
can's murder — "  a  deed  without  a  name  "  is  very  significant  of 
the  slight  concern  taken  by  the  literary  and  educated  classes 
in  the  social  problem.  Political  economy  pretends  to  have 
spoken  the  last  word  as  regards  the  relations  between  labor 
and  capitalism,  yet  its  exponents  have  not  even  invented  a 
term  which  in  any  way  describes  this  process  of  grinding  or 
crushing  between  the  opposing  forces  of  monopoly  and  com- 
petition. Probably  the  French  word  "  exploitation "  is  the 
nearest  approach  to  the  crystallization  of  the  idea  in  a  single 
expression ;  but  it  is  used  in  too  vague  and  general  a  sense  to 
be  available  in  any  discussion  requiring  precision  of  state- 
ment. 

This  lack  of  adequate  phraselogy  in  which  to  set  forth  the 
evils  of  the  existing  system  has  given  an  immense  advantage 
to  its  upholders.  They  are  able  to  use  language  in  a  mislead- 
ing way,  to  play  upon  words  and  to  twist  ambiguous  phrases 
so  as  to  bear  the  significance  required  by  their  arguments.  If 
it  be  urged,  for  instance,  that  "  capital "  is  antagonistic  to 
labor,  straightway  the  hired  apologist  for  capitalism  proceeds 
to  point  out  that  but  for  capital — the  accumulated  product 
of  labor — the  toiler  would  be  reduced  to  starvation,  and  to 
draw  the  inference  that  labor,  in  quarrelling  with  capital,  is 
arraying  itself  against  its  best  friend.  The  fallacy  which  un- 
derlies this  intellectual  thimblerigging  is  unperceived  by 
many.  Those  who  do  perceive  that  there  is  a  flaw  in  the 
reasoning  somewhere  are  perhaps  unable  to  meet  it  with 


THE  POLITICS  OF  LABOR.  23 

logical  argument  by  showing  the  distinction  between  capital 
as  a  factor  in  production  and  capitalism  as  a  controlling  force. 
In  like  manner,  where  the  evils  of  the  competitive  system  are 
dwelt  upon,  the  advocates  of  capitalism  assume  that  competi- 
tion exists  in  full  force  between  capitalists  as  well  as  between 
laborers,  and  ignore  all  other  aspects  of  the  problem  than  the 
relations  between  the  worker  and  his  employer.  They  leave 
out  of  the  account  altogether  the  pressure  of  the  upper  mill- 
stone. 

Obviously  it  is  not  only  the  amount  of  wages  which  have 
to  be  considered,  but  the  purchasing  power  of  those  wages. 
'"While  competition  lessens  the  pay  received  by  labor,  mono- 
poly not  merely  decreases  it  to  a  still  further  extent,  but  les- 
sens its  purchasing  power  as  well.  It  oppresses  the  worker 
in  countless  ways  both  directly  and  indirectly.  In  the  larger 
centres,  land  monopoly  taxes  him  enormously  over  and  above 
the  value  of  the  house  accommodation  he  obtains.  The  price 
of  his  fuel  is  enhanced  by  a  coal  ring ;  a  series  of  extortionate 
and  conscienceless  middlemen,  also  stand  between  him  and 
theWestern  farmer — railroad  kings,  elevator  men,  and  produce- 
exchange  gamblers  put  up  the  price  of  bread  ]by  their  ex- 
actions, and  oppress  producer  and  consumer  alike.  On 
numberless  articles  of  manufacture  he  is  taxed  far  above  their 
value  by  rings  and  combinations.  But  the  pressure  upon  him 
as  a  purchaser  and  consumer  does  not  stop  here.  Every 
class  with  whom  he  has  business  relations  shifts  its  burdens 
imposed  by  monopoly  onto  his  shoulders.  The  storekeeper 
includes  rent,  light,  fuel,  and  personal  outlay,  all  enhanced  by 
monopoly,  among  the  expenses  to  be  met  by  his  business,  and 
fixes  the  prices  of  his  goods  accordingly.  The  fees  of  the 
professional  classes  are  regulated  on  the  same  principle.  All 
burdens  imposed  on  society  in  general  by  the  landowner  and 
bondholder,  the  railroad  monopolist  and  stock  exchange 
sharper,  the  coal-mining  syndicates  and  manufacturing  rings, 
ultimately  fall  upon  productive  industry.  Every  dollar  of  the 
fortunes  "  made  "  but  not  earned,  is  finally  paid  by  labor,  simply 
because  there  is  no  other  source  from  which  it  can  possibly  be 


24  THE  POLITICS  OF  LABOB. 

paid.  But  because  the  robbery  is  indirect,  because  the  mon- 
opolists' first  victim  recoups  himself  from  those  with  whom  he 
has  dealings,  and  the  loss  is  passed  on  down  the  line  until  it 
finally  falls  upon  the  producer,  men  have  been  for  long  unable  to 
trace  the  connection  between  the  wealth  of  the  millionaire  and 
the  poverty  of  the  toiling  masses ;  to  see  that  the  one  is  the  cause 
of  the  other.  It  is  not  so  long  since  even  those  who  had  a  heart- 
felt sympathy  with  the  poor  contented  themselves  with  mor- 
alizing over  the  apparent  injustice  of  a  system  under  which 
some  were  superfluously  wealthy,  and  others  miserably  poor. 
Thanks  to  the  spread  of  enlightenment,  we  now  know  that  a 
real  injustice  is  involved,  inasmuch  as  the  poverty  of  the  many 
is  caused  by  the  unearned,  and  therefore  stolen,  wealth  of  the 
few. 

The  same  process  of  shifting  the  burdens  of  monopoly 
down  to  the  worker  decreases  the  amount  of  wages  as  well 
as  lessens  their  purchasing  power.  In  so  far  as  these  bur- 
dens fall  in  the  first  instance  upon  the  employer,  he  reckons 
them  as  part  of  the  expenses  of  his  business,  which  must  be 
met  out  of  its  returns.  Heavy  ground-rents,  increased  prices 
of  raw  material,  usury,  extortionate  freights,  and  the  like 
must  be  provided  for  by  lessening  other  expenses  or  increas- 
ing the  gross  receipts,  and  mean  either  decreased  wages  to 
employees  or  increased  prices  to  the  public — perhaps  partly 
the  one  and  partly  the  other,  according  to  the  condition  of 
the  labor  market.  In  either  case  the  result  as  regards  the 
working-class  as  a  whole  is  practically  the  same.  The  tax 
imposed  by  monopoly  is  paid  by  the  earnings  of  industry. 
Where  else  could  the  money  come  from  to  pay  it  ? 

Of  all  forms  of  monopoly,  the  most  oppressive  and  the  most 
insidious  is  that  of  private  land-ownership.  The  most  oppres- 
sive, because  its  exactions  are  vastly  greater  than  those  of  all 
other  forms  combined,  and  because  they  constantly  increase 
in  a  ratio  proportioned  to  the  necessities  of  the  landless  class 
— the  most  insidious,  because  unlike  others  of  recent  growth, 
it  is  so  deeply  rooted  in  and  firmly  intwined  with  our  insti- 
tutions, ideas,  and  economic  system,  that  its  injustice  is  not 


THE  POLITICS  OF  LABOR. 


25 


generally  recognized,  and  because  the  interests  of  the  idlers 
whom  it  enriches  by  the  labor  of  others  are  falsely  identi- 
fied with  those  of  a  large  and  most  important  class  of  actual 
producers,  wrongfully  supposed  to  be  concerned  in  its  preser- 
vation. The  great  truth  that  the  land  belongs  of  right  to  the 
whole  community,  and  that  any  claim  on  the  part  of  an  indi- 
vidual to  more  than  a  right  of  occupancy  or  cultivation  on 
paying  into  the  public  treasury  its  yearly  value  is  a  robbery, 
has  been  so  fully  and  clearly  set  forth  by  Henry  George  in 
words  which  have  commanded  the  respectful  attention  of  a 
class  hitherto  little  disposed  to  attach  importance  to  the  utter- 
ances of  Labor  Reformers,  that  an  elaborate  presentation  of 
this  phase  of  the  subject  might  seem  superfluous.  But  the 
scope  of  this  volume  requires  a  thorough  investigation  of  all 
those  influences  wrhich  combine  to  depress  the  condition  of 
labor  before  the  direction  in  which  a  remedy  is  to  be  looked 
for  can  intelligently  be  considered.  In  the  case  of  so  promi- 
nent and  widespread  a  cause  of  social  disarrangement,  some- 
thing niore  than  a  mere  reference  is  clearly  called  for,  even 
though  no  new  light  be  thrown  on  the  subject. 

|  In  a  new  land,  such  as  America,  where  a  single  generation 
witnesses  the  growth  of  crowded  cities  and  populous  states 
out  of  the  sparsely  settled  wilderness,  it  is  much  more  easy 
to  trace  the  workings  of  an  unjust  social  system  than  in  old 
countries  where  institutions  have  been  crystallized  for  cen- 
turies, so  that  in  the  eyes  of  many  they  seem  part  of  the  eter- 
nal order  of  things.  But  the  insidious  indirectness  of  the 
process  and  the  lapse  of  time  between  the  beginning  and  the 
culmination,  brief  though  it  is  as  compared  with  the  slower 
operation  of  the  same  causes  in  Europe,  have  hitherto  pre- 
vented a  general  recognition  of  the  evil  effects  of  land  mon- 
opoly. If  these  effects,  instead  of  being  at  first  impercepti- 
ble, then  slightly  experienced,  and  so  gradually  and  slowly 
growing  with  the  growth  of  the  community,  were  suddenly 
to  be  produced  by  a  direct,  concrete,  overt  act  on  the  part  of 
the  exploiting  class,  every  one  would  understand  the  essential 
injustice  of  the  system. 


26  THE  POLITICS  OF  LABOR. 

Let  us  adopt  a  familiar  form  of  illustration  to  make  this 
clear.  That  clearness  rather  than  originality  is  the  object  in 
view  must  be  my  apology  for  its  triteness. 

Here  is  an  uninhabited  island  in  the  Pacific  Ocean.  Unin- 
habited, but  fertile  ;. overgrown  with  luxuriant  and  spreading 
vegetation,  swarming  with  game,  and  abounding  in  everything 
required  for  the  support  of  man.  One  day  a  ship  is  stranded 
on  the  neighboring  coral  reefs,  the  breakers  dash  her  in  pieces, 
and  the  crew  plunge  wildly  for  the  shore.  Some  are  drowned, 
some  meet  their  death  by  being  thrown  against  the  jagged 
rocks;  and  of  the  whole  number  a  dozen  manage  to  reach  the 
shore  in  safety,  but  breathless  and  exhausted  by  their  struggle 
for  life.  As  soon  as  they  have  recovered  sufficiently  to  real- 
ize their  situation,  they  take  the  necessary  measures  for 
providing  for  the  immediate  future.  Some  of  the  ship's 
stores,  some  fragments  of  the  wreck,  are  cast  ashore.  They 
manufacture  rude  implements  of  agriculture.  They  put  up 
temporary  houses.  They  gather  fruit  and  dig  roots,  and  set 
about  cultivating  the  soil  in  primitive  fashion.  The  island  is 
amply  large  enough  to  support  ten  times  their  number,  but 
our  sailors  have  been  brought  up  with  orthodox  ideas  of  polit- 
ical economy  and  cannot  reconcile  themselves  to  the  "  com- 
munistic" notion  of  holding  the  land  in  common,  so  it  is  duly 
divided  up  among  them.  Each  man  surrounds  his  patch  with 
a  rude  fence,  or  blazes  the  trees  as  a  line  of  demarcation,  and 
the  little  community  starts  according  to  the  most  approved 
principles  of  modern  civilization. 

So  matters  go  on  for  a  year  or  so.  A  rude  plenty  prevails 
in  the  colony.  There  is  enough  and  to  spare  for  all,  and  the 
worst  evils  of  civilization  are  unknown.  But  one  morning 
there  is  great  excitement.  A  boat  appears  in  the  offing.  Slowly 
it  nears  the  shore.  The  mariners  run  down  to  the  beach. 
The  keel  grates  on  the  sand,  and  a  few  haggard,  emaciated 
men  step  with  difficulty  ashore.  They  are  the  survivors  of  a 
boat-load  who  put  off  from  a  sinking  vessel  a  week  before  in 
the  hope  of  reaching  land.  Their  comrades  have  all  perished 
of  starvation,  and  they  are  themselves  at  the  last  gasp. 


THE  POLITICS  OF  LABOR.  27 

Their  immediate  necessities  are  supplied  and  in  a  few  days 
the  new-comers  regain  their  strength.  So  far  provisions  and 
shelter  have  been  given  them  and  no  questions  asked ;  but 
after  awhile  the  old  settlers  give  unmistakable  hints  that 
their  visitors  have  outstayed  their  welcome.  Finally,  one 
of  them  speaks  out. 

"  Say,  boys  ;  don't  you  think  you  ought  to  shift  for  yourselves 
now  ?  '  He  that  won't  work  neither  shall  he  eat,'  as  the  Book 
says." 

"  Just  so, "  says  onfc  of  the  later  arrivals.  "  We  were  just 
thinking  that  we  ought  to  scratch  for  our  own  living  from 
this  out.  To-morrow  we  intend  to  put  up  a  cabin  on  the 
bluff  over  there  and  go  to  work." 

"  Well,  if  that  ain't  cool !  "  ejaculates  one  of  the  early  settlers. 
"  That's  my  land  !  You  can't  build  on  my  land !  " 

'•  Your  land,  eh  ?  It  does  not  seem  to  be  in  use  by  anybody ; 
but  if  you  have  pre-empted  it  we  won't  quarrel  about  it. 
There's  another  location  where  the  land  shelves  up  from  the 
beach,  just  past  that  rocky  point  there,  will  do  us  about  as 
well." 

"  Hold  on  though — that's  my  lot !  "  observes  another  of  the 
first  inhabitants. 

"  Well,  we  wont  dispute  your  claim.  It's  altogether  likely 
we  can  find  some  other  place  to  suit  us.  Anyhow  we'll  look 
around  to-morrow  for  a  location,  and  we  won't  ask  you  to  do 
anything  more  for  us." 

The  old  settlers  look  at  each  other  in  amaze  at  the  igno- 
rance or  audacity  of  the  new  arrivals.  Finally,  one  of  them 
explains. 

"  You  seem  to  be  under  a  strange  misapprehension.  You 
can't  settle  anywhere  upon  our  island.  You  have  no  right  here 
at  all.  We  as  first  comers  have  taken  possession,  and  the  land 
is  regularly  divided  amongst  us.  We  have  an  indefeasible 
title  to  it.  Go  off  and  find  an  island  for  yourselves." 

"  But,"  says  one  of  the  new-comers,  "  we  have  as  much  right 
here  as  you.  This  island  is  large  enough  to  support  a  hundred 
people.  You  have  move  land  tha^-jt«t^:;:^p^sibly  need, 


UITI7EESIT7 
\\  >%,  // 


28  THE  POLITICS  OF  LABOR. 

You  have,  it  is  true,  divided  it  up ;  but  that  is  about  all  you 
have  done.  It  is  nearly  all  in  a  state  of  nature  ;  let  us  have 
at  least  a  few  acres." 

"  If, "  replies  the  spokesman  of  the  land-grabbers,  "  you  had 
studied  even  the  rudiments  of  political  economy,  you  would 
know  that  neither  your  necessities  nor  our  superfluities  have 
anything  to  do  with  the  question.  But  you  are  no  doubt 
socialists  or  anarchists,  upon  whom  the  principles  of  that 
sublime  science  would  make  no  impression  ;  so  we  will  not 
argue  the  matter  further  than  to  observe  that  we  have  not 
merely  an  unimpeachable  title,  but  the  necessary  force  to 
maintain  it.  We  are  two  to  one.  We  own  this  island  and  mean 
to  keep  it  for  ourselves.  There  lies  your  boat,  under  the 
circumstances  we  will  not  charge  you  for  wharfage — Go  !  " 

"  But  where — where  ?  We  are  a  hundred  leagues  from 
anywhere,  with  neither  chart  nor  compass  nor  provisions.  It 
would  be  sailing  to  certain  death  ! " 

Meanwhile,  one  of  the  property-owners  has  been  struck  by  a 
brilliant  idea.  He  mentions  it  to  the  rest.  They  confer 
awhile,  and  the  spokesman,  advancing  to  the  little  group  who 
are  mournfully  preparing  for  their  departure,  addresses  them 
as  follows : 

"  As  you  don't  seem  to  like  the  idea  of  leaving,  we  will 
allow  you  to  stay  here  on  certain  conditions.  You  must  dig 
our  ground.  You  must  sow  and  harvest  our  crops.  You 
must  put  us  up  better  houses  than  we  at  present  occupy,  cut 
us  down  fuel  in  the  bush,  catch  us  fish  and  game,  in  fact  do 
all  the  hard,  rough  work  that  we  have  hitherto  been  obliged 
to  do  for  ourselves.  And  you  must  acknowledge  us  as  your 
natural  superiors  and  always  speak  and  act  respectfully 
towards  us,  no  matter  how  much  we  may  abuse  you.  In 
return  for  which  we  will  permit  you  to  live  here,  and  so  long 
as  you  raise  plenty  of  food  for  us  we  will  allow  you  enough 
to  live  on  ;  but  if  you  are  lazy  and  do  not  produce  sufficient  to 
feed  both  us  and  yourselves,  of  course  you  must  starve ;  for, 
4  He  that  will  not  work  neither  shall  he  eat,  you  know." 

*  Pretty  hard  terms !  "  says  one  of  the  unfortunates, 


THE  POLITICS  OF  LABOR.  29 

«  Hard  ?  Hard !  Why,  man,  we  don't  ask  you  to  accept 
them.  We  believe  in  perfect  freedom  of  contract.  Those 
are  our  terms — if  you  don't  like  them  you  can  go  anywhere 
else." 

Of  course  there  was  practically  only  one  alternative ;  so  the 
second  shipwrecked  crew  became  the  slaves  of  those  who  by 
accident  had  arrived  a  year  or  two  before  them,  and  raised 
their  corn,  chopped  their  wood,  and  caught  their  fish,  while 
the  proprietors  of  the  soil  loafed  about  in  the  shade  of  the 
palm  trees  in  all  the  dignity  of  land-ownership. 

Did  land  monopoly  in  the  outset  assume  this  crude  phase, 
its  hardships  would  be  obvious  to  all.  Nobody  could  deny 
the  injustice  of  a  positive  hard-and-fast  law  by  which  an  indi- 
vidual or  a  society  should  take  advantage  of  the  necessities 
of  those  whom  accident  placed  in  their  power,  and  enslave 
them  as  the  condition  of  permitting  them  to  exist.  But  be- 
cause these  cruel  results  are  of  slow  and  gradual  development, 
and  are  the  outcome  of  social  conditions  instead  of  direct 
personal  action,  the  abuses  of  the  system  have  not  been  rec- 
ognized by  the  mass. 

The  parallel  is  in  no  single  respect  overdrawn.  The 
condition  of  the  man  without  resources  except  his  labor  of 
muscle  or  brain,  in  a  settled  and  organized  community,  is 
practically  that  of  the  shipwrecked  sailor  driven  to  choose 
between  slavery  and  death.  That  he  inhabits  a  crowded 
continent  instead  of  an  almost  unpeopled  island  makes  no 
appreciable  difference.  So  long  as  all  the  resources  of  life  for 
hundreds  of  miles  around  him  are  held  in  the  clutch  of 
monopoly,  he  is  as  completely  cut  off  from  availing  himself 
of  natural  rights  and  opportunities  as  though  surrounded  by  a 
waste  of  waters. 

But  the  illustration,  though  sufficiently  apt  as  regards  the 
working  of  monopoly  alone,  falls  short  of  the  reality  resulting 
from  monopoly  with  competition.  Under  this  double  pres- 
sure the  man  without  resources  sometimes  has  not  even  the 
alternative  of  wage-slavery.  When  the  struggle  for  leave  to 
work  becomes  intense,  owing  to  the  increase  in  the  number 


\ 

30  THE  POLITICS  OF  LABOR. 

of  would-be  toilers  without  the  means  of  self-employment, 
some  are  denied  the  privilege  upon  any  terms,  because  those 
who  control  the  avenues  of  labor  have  no  use  for  their  ser- 
vices. They  become  outcasts  and  vagrants,  seek  by  crime  the 
bread  denied  to  honest  labor,  eke  out  a  miserable  existence  on 
the  alms  of  the  charitable,  or  die  of  slow  starvation,  while  all 
around  them  is  abundance,  and  the  lives  of  their  fellows  are 

a  burden  by  hard  monotonous  overwork. 
In  addition  to  the  gradual  development  of  the  evils  of  land 
monopoly,  the  comparatively  wide  distribution  of  the  unearned 
increment  during  its  earlier  stages  is  another  cause  why  its 
injustice  is  not  generally  realized.  While  land  is  rising  in 
value,  a  great  many  people  are  making  money  and  many  more 
mistakenly  think  they  are,  while  the  pressure  upon  the  land- 
less class  is  only  beginning  to  be  slightly  felt.  As  a  matter 
of  fact  it  is  only  those  who  hold  land  to  sell  or  rent  who  are 
benefited  by  any  increase  in  land  values.  Those  who 
simply  occupy  land  for  their  individual  use,  for  cultivation, 
residence,  or  business  purposes,  are  in  no  degree  advan- 
taged by  the  rise.  A  man  who  has  bought  a  house  and  lot 
in  a  growing  town,  for  instance,  for  one  thousand  dollars, 
feels  greatly  elated  when  he  learns  that  owing  to  the  increase 
of  population  it  has  doubled  its  value.  He  fancies  himself  a 
thousand  dollars  richer  than  when  he  made  the  purchase.  In 
one  sense  he  is.  He  can  sell  out  for  a  thousand  dollars  more 
than  he  paid.  But  if  he  means  to  continue  a  resident  he 
must  purchase  or  rent  at  the  increased  value,  so  that  his 
unearned  increment  is  no  benefit.  True,  he  may,  by  watch- 
ing his  chances  and  exercising  his  judgment,  invest  his  money 
to  better  advantage.  But  for  the  purposes  of  the  present  argu- 
ment we  are  not  considering  those  changes  of  a  speculative 
character  made  by  owners  of  real  estate,  but  the  effect  of  a 
rise  in  value  upon  those  who  hold  property  for  other  than 
speculative  purposes.  Clearly  the  man  who  lives  in  a  thou- 
sand dollar  house  and  means  to  continue  living  in  the  same 
locality  is  really  no  richer  for  any  purpose  except  that  of 
speculation  because  after  the  lapse  of  some  years,  the  house 


THE  POLITICS  OF  LABOR.  31 

meantime  having  grown  visibly  out  of  repair  from  age,  the 
property  is  said  to  be  worth  two,  five,  or  ten  thousand  dollars. 
Neither  is  the  manufacturer  or  store-keeper,  as  a  manufacturer 
or  storekeeper,  any  the  better  off  by  reason  of  a  similar  rise 
in  value  of  the  land  on  which  his  place  of  business  stands. 
He  can  sell  out  for  more,  that  is  all;  but  to  continue  his  call- 
ing he  would  have  to  pay  a  price  either  in  the  form  of  pur- 
chase money  or  rent  equivalent  to  his  gain  apart  from  the 
chances  of  a  lucky  speculation  in  exchanging  a  more  for  a 
less  costly  site.  Nevertheless  the  adventitious  increase  in 
value  deceives  many  people  into  supposing  that  they  are 
really  wealthier  because  the  property  which  they  hold  and 
have  all  along  held  for  a  particular  purpose,  independent  of 
its  selling  price,  is  nominally  held  at  a  higher  figure.  So 
far  as  the  real  value  of  the  property  for  trade,  occupation  or 
ersidence  is  concerned  they  are  in  precisely  the  same  condition 
as  before  the  rise.  And  the  change  which  enriches  the  land 
speculator  or  the  individual  property-owner  who  takes  advant- 
age of  the  unearned  increment  to  realize  upon  his  land  lays 
a  heavy  and  always  increasing  burden  upon  the  laboring  class 
as  a  whole. 

Let  us  suppose  that  John  Wilson,  a  blacksmith,  settles  in 
the  small  village  of  Boomington,  which  seems  to  afford  a  good 
opening  for  one  of  his  craft.  Land  is  still  cheap  though  con- 
siderably advanced  beyond  farm  prices,  owing  to  the  prospects 
of  the  community  ;  and  John  thinks  himself  fortunate  in  being 
able  to  secure  a  good-sized  lot  on  the  straggling  main  street 
for  $100.  He  builds  a  shop  and  small  house  adjoining,  and 
being  an  industrious  and  sober  mechanic,  soon  finds  himself 
in  a  fair  way  of  business.  The  calculations  of  the  villagers 
as  to  their  future  were  well-founded.  The  place,  owing  to  its 
natural  advantages  as  a  business  center,  rapidly  increases  in 
population.  Shops  and  stores  are  springing  up  in  all  direc- 
tions. One  day  John  Wilson  is  confronted  by  a  demand  for 
taxes  greatly  in  excess  of  the  amount  lie  had  previously  paid. 
He  looks  over  the  paper  in  surprise.  "  Why,  you  have  valued 
my  place  at  two  thousand  dollars.  All  I  paid  for  the  lot  was 
$100  :  and  the  buildings  ain't  worth  rnore  than  $500. 


32  THE  POLITICS  OF  LABOR. 

"  Ah,  but  you  know  we've  bad  a  re-valuation.  Your  prop- 
erty is  worth  every  cent  of  $2000.  You  wouldn't  take  that 
much  for  it,  you  know." 

"  Come  to  think  of  it,  I  guess  I  would'nt,"  says  John  to 
himself;  and  he  pays  bis  taxes  with  a  reluctant  grunt,  chuck- 
ling inwardly,  however,  at  his  good  fortune  in  having  "made  " 
at  least  fourteen  hundred  on  land  the  value  of  which  grew 
whether  he  was  sleeping  or  working,  in  addition  to  the  snug 
little  sum  saved  from  the  proceeds  of  bis  honest  toil.  But 
though  his  position  as  a  land-owner  is  indisputably  bettered 
by  the  growth  of  the  place,  as  a  blacksmith  lie  is  no  better 
off  than  before.  Increased  population  has  brought  increased 
business,  it  is  true ;  but  it  has  also  brought  increased  com- 
petition. At  first  he  had  no  competitors — now  there  are 
half  a  dozen  ;  and  though  work  is  perhaps  somewhat  more 
plentiful,  prices  are  decidedly  lower,  and,  as  we  have  just 
seen,  his  taxes  are  higher.  Nevertheless  John  is  vastly  pleased 
with  his  foresight  in  the  choice  of  a  location,  because  he 
knows  that  whatever  may  become  of  his  business,  he  has  in 
his  land  an  investment  of  steadily  increasing  value. 

Time  goes  on,  and  despite  some  fluctuations,  Boomington 
continues  its  growth.  The  village  has  become  a  city.  Property 
on  the  main  street  is  too  valuable  for  business  purposes  to  be 
occupied  as  dwellings,  and  John  Wilson  is  finally  tempted  to 
sell  the  portion  of  his  lot  on  which  his  cottage  stands  for 
several  thousand  dollars.  With  a  shrewd  eye  to  the  future,  he 
buys  a  residence  in  the  suburbs  with  a  large  area  of  vacant, 
land  adjoining.  The  blacksmith  business  is  no  better  than 
before,  but  John  has  now  become  a  capitalist.  He  has  several 
journeymen  in  place  of  the  solitary  apprentice  of  old.  But. 
his  interest  in  his  trade  is  not  the  same.  The  profits  he  can 
make  as  a  blacksmith  are  a  small  matter  compared  with  the 
prospects  of  realizing  a  competence  from  the  increase  in  the 
value  of  his  land.  The  old  blacksmith  shop  has  a  strangely 
incongruous  aspect  amid  its  surroundings  of  handsome  stores 
and  palatial  blocks  of  business  offices,  and  so  one  day  John 
Wilson  lays  down  his  hammer  and  throws  off  his  leather 


THE  POLITICS  OF  LABOR.  33 

apron  forever.  He  has  sold  out  the  site  to  an  enterprising 
merchant  at  a  handsome  figure.  He  can  now  take  life  easy. 
He  is  a  "  self-made  man,"  and  is  never  tired  of  boasting  that 
he  made  every  cent  of  his  money  by  his  honest  industry. 
John  has  no  sort  of  toleration  for  the  complaints  of  labor. 
Talk  to  him  of  the  uncertainty  of  employment  and  the  prefc- 
sure  of  competition  ;  tell  him  that  the  tendency  of  land  monoV 
poly  is  to  make  the  rich  richer  and  the  poor  poorer,  and  he 
will  reply — "  All  nonsense,  sir.  The  whole  trouble  comes  from 
the  teaching  of  agitators  and  demagogues.  Why,  look  at  me  ! 
I  came  here  thirty  years  ago,  with  hardly  a  cent  to  my  name, 
worked  hard,  grew  up  with  the  place,  and  to-day,  sir,  I'm 
worth  thirty  to  forty  thousand  dollars.  Any  working-man 
who  is  sober  and  industrious  can  do  the  same.^5^ 

A  short  time  since,  Mr.  Wilson  received  a  visit  from  Tarn 
Judson,  son  of  an  old  friend  and  former  shop-mate,  j  The 
young  fellow  had  taken  to  his  father's  trade,  and  learning  of 
Wilson's  prosperity  had  concluded  that  Boomington  ought  to 
be  a  good  place  in  which  to  settle.  He  had  a  few  hundred 
dollars,  and  furnished  by  his  father  with  a  note  of  introduc- 
tion to  his  old  friend,  came  to  ask  his  advice  and  assistance.  I 

"Ah— um"  said  Wilson.  "Glad  to  do  anything  I  can. 
But  things  are  very  different  now,  you  know.  Any  number 
of  good  hands  looking  for  work.  You  might  get  a  job  at; 
Coulter's  place,  perhaps,  at  nine  dollars  a  week  or  so." 

"But  I  thought  of  starting  on  my  own  account.  I  have  a 
few  hundred  dollars,  and  if  I  could  buy  a  shop — " 

"  Buy  a  shop  in  Boomington  for  a  few  hundred  dollars  ! 
You  must  be  crazy.  It  would  cost  a  great  deal  more  than  that 
to  buy  the  land.  You  might  perhaps  rent  a  place.  But  it's 
no  use  to  start  a  one-horse  establishment  in  these  days  of 
competition.  Like  everything  else  it  requires  capital.  You'd 
better  not  risk  your  money  in  starting  on  your  own  account, 
but  look  out  for  a  job.  Are  you  married  ? 

"  Yes.  I  want  to  start  housekeeping  right  away.  I  thought 
perhaps  I  could  get  a  lot  cheap,  and  then  get  a  small  house 
put  up  on  time." 


34  THE  POLITICS  OF  LABOR. 

"  Well,  that  is  perhaps  the  best  thing  you  can  do ;  but  of 
course  if  you  expect  to  buy  cheap  you  will  have  to  go  some 
distance  out.  I  think  I  have  just  the  lot  that  will  suit  you 
for  $500.  It  will  be  two  or  three  miles  from  your  work, 
but  the  street  cars  are  handy.  I  did  intend  holding  it  for  a 
further  rise,  but  seeing  you  are  Tom  Judson's  son  I  don't 
mind  letting  you  have  it  for  that,  and  its  a  bargain  I  assure 
you.  If  you  have  steady  work  and  are  saving  and  economical, 
you  ought  to  be  able  to  pay  for  the  house  in  four  or  five 


rears." 


low  the  difference  between  the  positions  and  opportunities 
of  John  Wilson  and  Tom  Judson  at  the  outset  of  their 
careers  is  due  to  land  monopoly)  The  wealth  of  the  former, 
though  partly  the  earnings  of  his  calling,  was  mainly  the  re- 
sult of  his  power  as  a  land-owner  to  levy  a  tax  on  future  in- 
dustry. His  enrichment  involved  the  poverty  of  future  gen- 
erations of  laborers  by  making  the  conditions  of  existence  for 
them  less  endurable  and  diminishing  their  prospects  of  success 
in  life.  But  the  connection  is  lost  sight  of  owing  to  the  fact 
that  the  processes  are  not  simultaneous — that  the  pressure  is 
not  felt  in  its  intensity  in  the  earlier  stages  of  the  develop- 
ment— and  that  when  it  does  begin  to  be  felt  the  victims 
themselves,  owing  to  the  complications  of  the  system,  may  be 
in  turn  reaping  or  hoping  to  reap  compensating  advantages, 
at  the  expense  of  their  successors.  Tom  Judson,  for  instance, 
while  forced  to  recognize  the,  to  him,  melancholy  fact  that 
"  things  have  changed  "  since  the  day  that  John  Wilson  came 
to  Boomington  with  no  more  money  than  he  had,  and  was 
able  to  become  his  own  landlord  and  employer,  does  not  clear- 
ly trace  the  connection  between  that  change  and  the  accumu- 
lation of  wealth  in  the  hands  of  Wilson  and  others  through 
the  ownership  of  land.  And  supposing  he  does  see  it,  he  is 
now  himself  a  landowner.  He  may  fairly  hope  before  he 
dies  to  see  the  value  of  his  five  hundred  dollar  lot  at  least 
doubled  or  quadrupled  by  the  further  expansion  of  Booming- 
ton, and  his  supposed  self-interest  inclines  him  to  believe  that 
private  land-ownership  is  rather  a  good  thing.  He  overlooks 


THE  POLITICS  OF  LABOR.  35 

altogether  the  tax  he  pays  to  monopoly.  His  small  but  ob- 
vious and  tangible  interest  as  a  landowner  looms  larger  in 
his  eyes  than  the  detriment  he  suffers  from  the  subtle,  indi- 
rect, atmospheric  pressure,  so  to  speak,  which  crushes  him  as 
a  worker  and  a  consumer. 

Considering,  then,  that  land  monopoly  in  the  earlier  stages 
of  a  community's  growth  appears  to  be  benefiting  a  great 
many  people  without  injuring  any  one,  and  that  the  real  ad- 
vantage is  so  widely  distributed  as  to  be  shared  by  many 
laborers  to  an  extent  which  often  more  than  counterbalances 
the  injury  they  sustain,  and  in  many  other  cases  appears  to 
do  so,  it  is  not  to  be  wondered  at  that  the  people  have  been 
slow  to  realize  this  great  cause  of  industrial  evils. 

But1  before  long  there  comes  a  time  in  the  history  of  all 
populous  centers  when  the  immense  majority  of  the  people 
are  deprived  of  all  compensating  advantages,  either  real  or 
apparent ;  when  land  has  reached  such  a  price  as  to  be  entirely 
beyond  the  reach  of  the  wage-earner,  and  the  results  of  mono- 
poly and  competition  are  felt  to  their  full  extent.  Labor 
pays  in  increased  rents,  increased  prices,  and  diminished  wages 
the  tribute  imposed  years  before  by  those  who  "  made  money  " 
from  the  augmented  value  of  the  land. 

In  all  great  cities  rents  are  enormously  high,  and  by  the 
operation  of  land  monopoly  and  competition  are  steadily 
growing  higher.  In  Harpers  Magazine  for  November,  1882, 
there  appeared  an  article  by  Junius  Henri  Browne  on  the 
subject  of  living  in  New  York,  setting  forth  in  very  strong 
terms  the  discomforts  and  exactions  to  which  even  the  com- 
paratively well-to-do  classes  were  subject.  The  following  is 
an  extract : — 

"  There  is  no  prospect,  in  fact,  of  desirable  flats — that  is? 
apartments  of  any  size,  convenient,  light,  and  airy — being 
other  than  expensive  in  this  city.  It  is  twelve  years  since  the 
first  apartment  houses  were  built;  hundreds  of  them  of  divers 
grades  have  been  put  up  all  over  town ;  but  those  capable  of 
accommodating  a  small  family,  with  an  elevator  and  pleasant, 
well-ventilated  rooms,  cannot  be  had  for  less  than  from  $1,500 


36  THE  POLITICS  OF  LABOR. 

to  $2,000.  There  are  flats  in  poor  quarters  that  rent  for  from 
$600  to  $800,  but  they  usually  have  dark  chambers,  they  are 
ill-arranged,  and  are  seldom  really  wholesome.  As  a  generali- 
zation, it  may  be  said,  that  reasonable  apartments  are  not  good, 
and  that  good  apartments  are  not  reasonable.  The  fond  antici- 
pations cherished  eight  or  ten  years  ago,  that  a  nice  healthful 
apartment  might  be  procured  for  from  $500  to  $600  annually, 
have  long  been  dispelled.  They  who  have  no  more  than  that 
to  spend  for  a  house,  so-called,  are  obliged  to  put  up  with  sun- 
dry discomforts,  and  to  jeopard  their  health  more  or  less  by 
sleeping  in  dark,  close  chambers.  It  would  seem  as  if  economy 
of  any  kind  were  impracticable  in  this  the  costliest  of  capitals. 
The  mere  decencies  of  life  are  well-nigh  beyond  the  reach  of 
men  dependent  on  salaries  or  ordinary  incomes.  The  average 
earnings  here  of  men  even  of  education  and  taste  are  not,  it 
is  alleged,  in  excess  of  $1,500  to  $1,600,  and  as  the  majority  of 
them  have  families  (the  unwritten  law  of  Manhattan  demands 
that  no  couple,  unless  financially  independent,  shall  have  more 
than  two  children),  they  are  forced  into  a  ceaseless  contest 
for  self-sustainment.  They  toil  through  life,  endure  vexation, 
disappointment,  tribulation,  pain,  and  quit  the  world  leaving 
no  provision  for  their  families,  but  generally  in  debt.  Com- 
paratively few  men  who  can  command  credit,  die,  it  is  said, 
with  all  their  liabilities  discharged." 

If  such  is  the  condition  of  "men  of  education  and  taste," 
those  who  can  earn  no  more  than  $1,500  or  $1,600 — what  of 
the  poor  man,  of  the  average  mechanic  or  laborer,  whose  entire 
yearly  earnings  out  of  which  he  must  feed,  clothe,  and  educate 
his  family,  may  not  amount  to  the  six  or  eight  hundred  neces- 
sary to  procure  even  "  flats  in  poor  quarters,"  ill-arranged,  dark, 
and  unwholesome  ?  Frequently  the  nature  of  their  employ- 
ment is  such  that  they  are  obliged  to  live  near  their  work. 
They  have  not  the  time  necessary  for  a  journey  to  and  from 
the  city  every  day.  Consequently  they  are  compelled  to  herd 
together  in  squalid  and  filthy  tenements,  amid  such  surround- 
ings of  moral  and  physical  pollution  as  render  it  almost  impos- 
sible for  them,  even  if  they  manage  to  preserve  their  own  re- 


THE  POLITICS  OF  LABOR.  37 

spectability,  to  bring  their  children  up  in  the  Avays  of  decency. 
In  these  abodes  of  destitution  and  wretchedness,  where  honest 
poverty  and  shameless  degradation  are  thrust  into  close  asso- 
ciation, every  influence  tends  to  drag  the  self-respecting,  clean- 
ly, and  industrious  poor  down  to  the  level  of  the  weltering  mass 
of  depravity  which  closes  around  them.  In  the  fetid  and  reeking 
slums  of  great  cities  there  is  contamination  in  the  very  air. 
The  privacy  of  home  life  is  impossible.  The  throng  of  human 
beings  who  swarm  and  huddle  in  the  crowded  tenements  can 
know  nothing  of  the  joys  of  a  free  and  wholesome  natural  life, 
such  as  brings  its  compensations  to  the  lot  of  rural  poverty. 
Deprived  of  the  sunshine  and  the  fresh  air,  hemmed  in  be- 
tween walls  which  exclude  the  light  of  Heaven,  and  robbed 
even  of  that  limited  and  circumscribed  share  in  the  earth  which 
gives  the  occupant  of  a  hovel  or  a  shanty  a  temporary  foot- 
room,  at  least,  upon  the  soil,  the  denizens  of  the  city  slums 
are  in  reality  poorer  than  the  wretchedest  peasantry  in  Europe. 
The  latter,  at  any  rate,  have  elbow-room  and  fresh  air.  If  their 
toil  is  hard  and  their  lives  monotonous,  they  know  something 
of  the  freshness  and  freedom  of  nature.  To  the  poor  dweller 
in  the  purlieus  of  great  cities,  monopoly  denies  even  the  prayer 
of  Ajax — "  Let  us  perish  in  the  face  of  day."  He  is  poisoned 
and  stifled  in  the  gloom. 

Since  the  condition  of  the  poor  has  become  a  prominent 
subject  of  discussion,  the  attempt  has  been  made  by  leading 
political  economists  and  statisticians  to  answer  the  indict- 
ment framed  by  Labor  Reformers  against  the  competition- 
monopoly  system,  by  the  assertion  that  the  rate  of  wages  has 
increased.  XAtthe  meeting  of  the  British  Association  at  Mont- 
real, in  18s$,  Edward  Atkinson  of  Boston  undertook  to  show 
that  poverty  was  not  increasing  with  the  expansion  of  industry ; 
contending  that  during  the  previous  40  years,  wages  had  been 
largely  increased  and  the  hours  of  labor  shortened.  Even 
were  these  statements  justified  by  a  wider  range  of  observa- 
tion than  that  upon  which  Mr.  Atkinson  appears  to  have 
based  his  conclusions,  they  would  not  disprove  the  contention 
that  the  monopoly  of  resources  and  competition  between 


38  THE  POLITICS  OF  LABOR. 

workers  exercise  an  increasingly  depressing  influence  upon 
the  condition  of  labor.  Political  economists  of  the  Atkinson 
and  Giffen  stamp  invariably  fall  into  the  error  previously 
noted,  of  narrowing  the  labor  question  down  to  the  relations 
between  the  working-man  and  his  employer.  This,  as  has  been 
shown,  is  a  very  superficial  view.  Obviously,  any  calculation 
based  on  the  wages  paid  at  particular  periods  leaves  out  of 
account  altogether  the  condition  of  the  unemployed.  The 
gist  of  the  Labor  Reform  contention  is,  that  owing  to  the  aug- 
mented pressure  of  competition  and  the  limitation  imposed  to 
self-employment  by  monopoly,  there  is  a  large  class  of  people, 
greatest  always  where  population  is  most  dense,  who  are  only 
able  to  obtain  work  intermittently.  The  first  annual  report 
of  the  United  States  Labor  Bureau,  issued  in  the  spring  of 
1886,  stated  that  out  of  the  total  number  of  industrial 
establishments,  such  as  factories,  mines,  etc.,  existing  in  the 
country,  about  five  percent,  were  absolutely  idle  during  1885, 
and  perhaps  five  per  cent,  more,  idle  a  part  of  the  time ;  making 
1\  and  cent,  a  just  estimate  of  the  whole  number  idle,  or 
equivalent  to  idle,  during  the  year.  On  this  basis,  the  Bureau 
obtains  a  total  of  J)98,839  wage-workers  unemployed  during 
1885.  But  obviously  this  falls  short  of  the  reality.  It  only 
gives  the  number  of  the  unemployed  for  whose  employment 
theVe  is  provision  in  connection  with  existing  establishments, 
and  takes  no  accounj,  of  the  class  outside  of  this  who  are  not 
attached  to  any  special  form  of  industry.  *Never  until  very 
recently  in  the  history  of  this  continent  was  there  this  large 
unemployed  or  half-employed  class,  crowded  out  of  the 
avenues  of  labor  by  the  pressure  of  population,  excluded 
from  access  to  the  untilled  acreage  by  the  operation  of 
monopoly,  and  falling  into  habits  of  permanent  idleness. 
\~Obviously,  no  mere  increase  in  wages  to  those  fortunate 
enough  to  obtain  steady  employment  can  compensate  those 
who  are  out  of  work,  any  more  than  they  can  indemnify  even 
those  who  are  sure  of  continuous  employment,  for  the  lack  of 
comfortable  homes.  Even  though  the  increase  were  sufficient  to 
make  up  for  the  additional  outlay  in  rent,  what  money  con- 


THE  POLITICS  OF  LABOR.  39 

sideration  would  be  adequate  to  atone  for  the  change  for  the 
worse  in  the  home  surroundings  of  the  working-class,  conse- 
quent upon  the  increase  of  land  values  and  the  growing  den- 
sity of  population,  j  There  are,  it  is  true,  many  wage-workers 
who  own  their  "homes,  but  the  proportion  of  those  who  are 
thus  fortunate  is  steadily  decreasing.  In  any  manufacturing 
center  it  will  be  found  on  inquiry  that  the  working-men  who 
pay  no  direct  tribute  to  the  land  monopolist  are  in  nearly 
all  cases  the  older  residents,  who  have  acquired  their  home- 
steads under  more  favorable  conditions  than  now  prevail — 
that  comparatively  few  of  the  new  generation  are  in  a  posi- 
tion to  become  their  own  landlords.  The  typical  American 
laborer  of  the  cities  is  no  longer  an  independent  self-owning 
citizen,  with  a  fixed  place  and  stake  in  the  community,  but  a 
proletarian,  without  the  local  attachment  and  deep  rootage  in 
the  soil  which  develops  the  virtues  of  citizenship  ;  compelled 
by  the  fluctuations  of  industry  and  the  chances  of  competition 
to  frequent  changes  of  residence.  He  does  not  first  choose  a 
home  and  then  seek  work,  but  is  compelled  to  follow  work 
wherever  he  can  find  it,  and  then  look  for  a  place  to  eat,  sleep, 
and  bestow  his  belongings.  His  interests  as  a  man  and  a 
citizen  are  subordinated  to  the  needs  of  the  toilert 

If  these  alterations  for  the  worse  in  the  lofTdi  labor  were 
due  to  any  inevitable  cause,  were  there,  for  instance,  such  a 
"  pressure  of  population  on  the  means  of  subsistence  "  that  it 
was  but  reasonable  and  just  that  each  should  be  content  with 
diminished  comfort  and  freedom,  they  might  well  be  borne 
without  complaint.  But  the  thing  that  adds  bitterness  to 
these  evils  is  the  thought  now  beginning  to  be  firmly  grasped 
by  the  disinherited  masses,  that  the  process  of  exploitation 
which  robs  them,  adds  enormously  to  the  wealth  of  the  few. 
That  within  the  past  two  generations  there  has  sprung  up 
in  America  a  millionaire  class  simultaneously  with  the 
growth  of  a  proletariat  is  seen  to  be  something  more  than  a 
coincidence.  It  is  perceived  that  under  the  regime  of  mon- 
opoly the  economic  forces  carry  out  to  a  literal  fulfillment 
the  text,  "For  whosoever  hath,  to  him  shall  be  given,  and 


40  THE  POLITICS  OF  LABOR. 

whosoever  hath  not,  froni  him  shall  be  taken  even  that  which 
he  seemeth  to  have."  \The  "seeming"  increase  in  wages  is 
no  real  increase,  because  their  power  of  purchasing,  not  merely 
cotton,  sugar  and  coal,  but  the  comfort,  manliness  and  indepen- 
dence of  the  recipient,  diminishes,  to  enrich  the  monopolist.  \ 

Rent,  usury,  and  profit  are  the  three  heads  of  the  mottern 
•Cerberus  of  capitalism  which  devour  the  toiler ;  three  forms 
•of  one  and  the  same  essential  injustice,  of  regarding  as  com- 
modities— as  something  to  be  traded  and  trafficked  in,  and 
made  to  pay  tribute  to  idlers  and  schemers — things  which 
should  not  be  placed  in  that  category. 

Land  ought  not  to  be  a  commodity,  because  like  air  and 
water  it  is  necessary  to  human  existence  ;  and  all  men  have  by 
birthright  equal  rights  to  its  use. 

Money  should  not  be  a  commodity,  because  it  is  used  for  the 
exchange  of  other  commodities,  and  when  it  is  made  an  article 
of  trade,  the  laborer  is  taxed  to  pay  the  dealer  in  money  a 
profit  under  the  name  of  interest  for  which  he  receives  no 
value. 

Labor  should  not  be  a  commodity,  because  it  is  human  life. 
The  difference  between  the  slaveholder,  who  robs  the  slave 
of  his  whole  time,  and  the  capitalist,  who  robs  the  wage-serf 
of  a  portion  of  his  time,  during  which  he  works  for  his  em- 
ployer's "  profit,"  is  obviously  one  only  of  degree. 

The  commodity-theory  in  regard  to  land,  money,  and  labor 
is  diametrically  opposed  to  the  idea  that  every  man  has  a 
right  to  the  full  value  of  his  labor,  and  no  man  the  right  to 
receive  value  for  which  he  does  not  labor,  which  appeals  to 
•every  man's  natural  sense  of  right  and  justice.  It  converts 
the  natural  resources  of  the  soil  and  the  mechanism  adopted 
to  facilitate  exchange  into  the  means  of  extorting  from  labor 
a  continually  increasing  proportion  of  its  product. 

The  exaction  of  usury  is  an  essential  feature  of  the  present 
Industrial  organization.  So  long  as  capital  remains  in  private 
hands,  and  is  regarded  as  a  means  of  personal  enrichment 
rather  than  a  power  to  be  used  for  the  benefit  of  the  whole 
community,  the  advocates  of  interest  as  a  natural  and  legit- 


THE  POLITICS  OF  LABOR.  41 

imate  payment  for  an  advantage  received  occupy  an  impreg- 
nable logical  position.  The  declamations  of  the  Green- 
backers  against  usury,  while  they  do  not  propose  to  disturb 
the  other  features  of  capitalism,  are  inconsistent,  and  show  a 
want  of  exact  thought.  To  admit  that  capital  should  be  under 
the  absolute  control  of  private  individuals,  for  the  purpose  of 
realizing  a  gain  additional  to  and  irrespective  of  the  value  of 
their  labor  of  superintendence  and  organization,  justifies  the 
entire  system  of  usury. 

A  man  invests  let  us  say  $  100,000  in  a  commercial  or  man- 
ufacturing enterprise,  out  of  which  he  clears  $  10,000  a  year 
after  all  expenses  are  paid.  This  is  called  by  the  misleading 
and  inaccurate  term,  "profit."  Analyzed,  it  comprises  two 
elements — labor  value,  the  legitimate  return  for  the  skill  and 
labor  expended,  and  usury  on  the  sum  invested.  Yet  because 
these  two  components  are  lumped  together  and  called  "  prof- 
it," the  essentially  unjust  nature  of  the  transaction  passes 
unrecognized  by  many  who  consider  themselves  the  uncom- 
promising opponents  of  usury.  Four  thousand  dollars  of  the 
employer's  "profit,"  let  us  suppose,  is  a  fair  equivalent  for  his 
personal  labor  of  supervision  and  technical  knowledge  ;  the  re- 
maining $  6000  is  interest  on  his  investment.  Now,  supposing 
that  instead  of  going  into  business  on  his  own  account,  he  had 
lent  his  $  100,000  capital  to  another  man,  who  agreed  to  pay 
him  six  per  cent,  interest  upon  it.  In  this  case,  the  "  profit " 
is  lessened  by  the  elimination  of  a  part  at  least  of  the  usury 
element.  But  practically  it  makes  no  sort  of  difference  to 
the  laborer  whether  his  employer  receives  the  whole  $  10,000 
profit,  as  being  a  capitalist  as  well  as  an  organizer  of  labor, 
or  whether  these  functions  are  divided  and  one  man  receives 
$  6000  as  usury,  pure  and  simple,  and  another  receives  $  4000 
as  profit.  In  either  case  there  is  just  so  much  withdrawn 
from  the  product  of  labor,  and  handed  over  to  one  who  has 
not  earned  it.  The  wrong  and  the  injustice  is  in  no  way 
lessened  by  the  fact  that  the  capitalist-employer  has  earned  a 
portion  of  his  total  receipts,  and  that  the  usury  is  merged  in 
the  amount  reckoned  as  profit.  During  the  greenback  agita- 


L 


THE  POLITICS  OF  LABOR. 


tion  the  "  bloated  bondholder "  was  the  object  of  much 
vigorous  denunciation  by  men  who  had  a  clear  perception  of 
the  iniquity  of  the  system  by  which  the  mere  possession  of 
wealth  enables  its  oismer  to  live  without  exertion  by  taxing 
the  labor  of  others.  {  But  they  failed  to  see  that  the  personal 
ownership  of  capital  to  be  used  without  control  for  the 
benefit  of  the  individual  logically  justifies  usury  in  all  its 
forms.  Morally  there  is  no  difference  between  the  invest- 
ment of  capital  by  the  owner,  in  a  business  subject  to  his  own 
direction,  in  the  expectation  of  gaining  a  profit  comprising 
usury  plus  wages  of  superintendence,  and  his  investing  it 
in  bonds,  stocks,  or  mortgages  for  usury  alone.  Once  admit 
the  right  of  capital  as  such  to  bring  in  a  yearly  return  to  the 
individual,  additional  to  the  worth  of  his  personal  services  in 
connection  with  its  management,  and  the  whole  case  of  the 
orthodox  political  economist  as  regards  the  interest  question  is 
conceded.  To  reverse  the  old  legal  maxim,  "  What  a  man 
does  by  himself  he  can  do  through  another."  f  If  it  is  right 
and  just  for  the  capitalist-employer  to  take  ^the  products  of 
labor  for  the  use  of  the  means  of  employment  and  the  tools 
of  trade,  it  is  equally  right  and  just  for  the  capitalist  who  is 
not  an  employer  to  delegate  to  another  the  same  power. 

fThe  weakness  of  the  position  of  the  Greenbackers  is  the  re- 
sult of  a  want  of  clearness  of  thought.  They  have  wasted 
their  strength  in  fighting  certain  phases  of  usury  which  were 
mere  incidents  of  the  capitalistic  system,  and  which  can  in  no 
way  be  overthrown  while  the  system  itself  endures.  They 
have,  however,  done  much  to  educate  the  public  as  to  the  evils 
of  usury,  and  to  prepare  the  way  for  more  comprehensive 
measures  than  they  had  in  viewj 

Although,  while  the  individual  power  of  the  capitalist  to 
control  production  and  exchange  continues  to  be  recognized, 
no  possible  change  in  the  currency  system  would  of  itself 
destroy  usury,  yet  the  present  gold  basis  system  greatly  in- 
tensifies its  evils,  by  making  money  artificially  scarce  and  dear. 
The  inadequacy  of  the  currency  to  the  legitimate  demands  of 
industry  and  commerce  necessarily  enables  the  usurer  to 


THE  POLITICS  OF  LABOR.  43 

increase  the  tax  levied  upon  production  for  the  use 
of  the  medium  of  exchange.  Money  is  called  the  tool 
of  trade,  and  just  as  an  artificial  scarcity  of  axes,  spades, 
and  hammers  would  enable  those  who  were  in  a  posi- 
tion to  monopolize  the  supply  to  charge  exorbitant  prices  for 
their  .use,  so  the  requirement  of  a  gold  basis  in  the  face  of  a 
continually  expanding  commerce  and  a  steadily  decreasing 
gold  supply,  forces  up  the  price  of  money — which  is  equiva- 
lent to  forcing  down  the  price  of  labor. 

According  to  the  United  States  census  reports  the  increase 
in  the  gross  value  of*  manufactured  products  during  the 
period  of  thirty  years  between  1850  and  1880  was  426  per- 
cent.; the  increase  in  their  net  value,  325  per  cent.;  the  increase 
in  capital  invested,  423  per  cent.;  and  in  wages  paid,  300  per 
cent.  Compare  this  wonderful  expansion  with  the  dimin- 
ished gold  production  as  shown  by  the  reports  of  the  director 
of  the  mint,  and  the  very  slight  and  gradual  increase  in  the 
aggregate  yield  of  gold  and  silver. 

In  1857  the  yield  of  gold  in  the  United  States  was  valued 
at  $55,000,000 ;  in  1860  it  was  $46,000,000 ;  in  1870,  $50,000, 
000  ;  in  1880,  $36,000,000,  and  in  1884  only  $30,800,000.  Taking 
the  aggregate  of  gold  and  silver,  the  production  was  $46,150, 
000  in  1860;  $66,000,000  in  1870  ;  $75,200,000  in  1880  ;  and 
$79,600,000  in  1884.  Had  the  opponents  of  silver  coinage 
been  able  to  restrict  the  currency  to  a  monometallic  basis,  the 
increasing  disproportion  to  business  needs  of  the  gold  supply, 
which  it  must  be  remembered  is  drawn  upon  for  a  hundred 
mechanical  and  artistic  uses  in  addition  to  that  of  coinage. 

O      • 

would  have  resulted  in  widespread  and  intensified  industrial 
depression.  Every  form  of  industry  and  trade  would  have 
been  crippled,  while  the  dealers  in  money  would  have  reaped 
a  similar  harvest  from  the  scarcity  of  the  commodity  to  that 
which  has  fallen  to  the  lot  of  the  money  monopolists  in 
England,  where  the  monometallic  system  prevails. 

The  manner  in  wrhich  those  who  control  the  currency  profit 
during  times  of  general  industrial  depression  is  shown  by 
the  following,  which  appeared  in  the  Toronto  Week,  the  organ 
of  Professor  Goldwin  Smith,  on  the  llth  of  March,  1886, 


THE  POLITICS  OF  LABOE. 

"  Considering  the  depression  of  trade,  the  dividends  paid  by  the  great 
British  Joint-Stock  banks  are  remarkable.  The  Bank  of  Ireland,  with 
a  capital  of  $15,000,000  and  a  reserve  of  almost  $6,000,000,  paid  its  stock- 
holders 12  per  cent,  last  year,  while  the  Bank  of  Belfast  excelled  this,  its 
dividend  being  20  per  cent. ;  and  the  prosperity  of  the  Irish  banks  seems 
more  remarkable  when  we  remember  the  stories  of  depression,  failure  of 
crops,  and  agrarian  troubles  which  come  from  the  Emerald  Isle.  The 
Bank  of  Sydney,  New  South  Wales,  delights  the  fortunate  holders  of  its 
stock  with  a  clear  dividend  of  25  per  cent.,  and  the  Bank  of  Australasia 
pays  16  on  a  capital  of  $5,000,000.  The  Lancashire  County  Bank  gave 
its  lucky  stock  owners  25.  The  largest  dividend  declared  by  any  Bank 
in  Great  Britain  in  1885  was  33§,  and  the  concern  that  paid  it  was  the 
Whitehaven  Joint-Stock  Bank,  a  close  corporation  institution  in  Lon- 
don, the  majority  of  its  stock  being  held  by  the  Duke  of  Westminster. 
The  Scottish  banks  are  very  prosperous  too.  The  Royal  Bank  of  Scot- 
land— the  second  oldest  in  Great  Britain,  for  it  was  established  in  1695 
— with  a  capital  of  £4,500,000,  paid  a  dividend  of  14  per  cent.,  while 
the  Commercial  Bank,  with  a  capital  of  £5,000,000,  declared  the  same 
amount.  The  Clydesdale  Bank,  the  next  richest  bank  in  Scotland,  earned 
12  per  cent.on  £5,000,000.  These  results  are  brought  about  by  the  shrewd- 
est management  and  a  thorough  understanding  of  the  business  in  hand  ; 
but  besides  this,  there  is  a  cause  as  yet  but  little  appreciated — the  en- 
hancement of  the  value  of  money,  the  commodity  dealt  in  by  banks,  as 
compared  with  all  other  commodities.  While  property  of  all  other  sorts 
has  depreciated  in  value  by  20  or  25  per  cent,  during  the  past  five  years, 
the  value  of  money  has  remained  stationary,  to  the  porportionate  ad- 
vantage of  all  owners  of  money." 

"  Considering  the  depression  of  trade,  the  dividends  paid 
by  the  great  British  joint-stock  banks  are  remarkable " ! 
This  is  putting  the  cart  before  the  horse  with  a  vengeance.  It 
would  be  just  about  as  logical  to  sny  that  "  considering  the 
losses  sustained  by  householders  by  robbery,  the  amount  of 
plunder  secured  by  burglars  is  remarkable."  As  the  conclud- 
ing sentences  of  the  quotation,  in  singular  contrast  to  the  ab- 
surdity of  its  opening  remark,  clearly  show,  the  depression  of 
trade  is  the  effect  of  the  artificial  enhancement  in  the  value 
of  money  resulting  from  the  gold  basis  system. 

(All  money  ought  to  be  issued  by  the  government  directly, 
without  the  intervention  of  corporations,  not  in  the  form  of 
promises  to  pay,  but  as  absolute  money  receivable  as  legal 
tender  for  all  purposes,  including  all  taxes  and  debts  due  the 


THE  POLITICS  OF  LABOR.  45 

government.  The  delusive  and  fraudulent  gold  basis  and  all 
pretense  of  intrinsic  value  or  redeemability,  should  be  aban- 
doned. Its  volume  should  be  regulated  by  the  demands  of 
commerce^  Flippant  and  shallow  sneerers  at  the  fiat  money 
principle  have  ridiculed  the  idea  of  a  scientific  and  systema- 
tized supply  of  money  proportioned  to  the  actual  needs  of  pro- 
duction and  exchange  in  place  of  the  present  plan  of  artificial 
restriction,  according  to  the  opportunities  for  individual  profit, 
as  a  chimerical  and  unattainable  project.  But  in  this  age  of 
statistics  and  elaborate  commercial  calculations,when  the  details 
of  every  important  branch  of  industry  and  business  are  so 
closely  estimated,  why  should  it  be  considered  impossible  to 
arrive  at  an  approximate  conclusion,  based  on  the  returns 
of  material  wealth,  production,  trade,  and  transportation,  as  to 
the  amount  of  money  needed  to  keep  the  wheels  of  industry  in 
motion  ?  The  volume  of  the  currency  required  surely  has  some 
ascertainable  ratio  proportioned  to  the  work  to  be  done,  to  the 
number  of  persons  to  be  employed,  and  the  quantity  of  the 
product  to  be  distributed.  Given  the  statistics  of  these  factors, 
and  surely  the  boasted  economic  science  is  competent  to  an- 
swer the  problem  of  how  much  of  the  medium  of  exchange  is 
needed  to  prevent  undue  friction  and  keep  the  machinery  of 
trade  moving. 

The  dangers  of  inflation  are  always  held  up  as  a  bugbear, 
in  connection  with  the  proposal  to  dispense  with  a  metallic 
basis.  But,  as  has  been  abundantly  shown  by  experience,  these 
dangers  are  not  averted  by  a  "redeemable  "  currency.  Tho 
worst  evil  of  undue  expansion  under  the  fiat  money  system 
would  be  that  the  puchasing  power  of  money  would  decrease 
all  round.  The  dollar  would  not  buy  as  much  as  if  the  cur- 
rency were  fairly  adequate  to  the  needs  of  trade  and  no  more. 
This  would  be  an  evil,  and  one  to  be  carefully  guarded 
against  in  fixing  the  amount  to  be  issued ;  but  a  very  slight  one 
indeed  as  compared  with  the  evils  of  the  too  great  expansion 
of  a  redeemable  currency  followed  by  a  forced  contraction, 
when,  as  in  the  case  of  the  resumption  of  specie  payments 
.after  the  war,  the  creditor  class  realized  enormous  sums  from 


46  THE  POLITICS  OF  LABOR. 

the  payment  in  gold  or  its  equivalent  of  debts  contracted  dur- 
ing the  inflation  period. 

The  advocates  of  a  gold  standard  urge  that  the  worth  of 
the  dollar  is  determined  by  the  actual  value  of  gold  as  an 
article  of  commerce.  In  other  words,  that  the  conception  of 
a  dollar  is  that  of  a  certain  fixed  amount  of  the  precious  metal ; 
the  only  thing  which  imparts  value  to  .the  paper  dollar  being 
the  knowledge  that  behind  it  there  is  this  metallic  value.  As 
a  matter  of  fact,  the  supposed  gold  basis  is  about  the  last 
thing  that  any  one  thinks  of  in  the  everyday  transactions  of 
business. 

"Lend  me  a  dollar."  "I  made  five  dollars  this  morning." 
"  I'll  bet  you  twenty  dollars."  Who,  in  using  or  hearing  these 
similar  customary  expressions,  ever  gives  a  thought  to  the 
gold  coin  or  its  equivalent  in  bullion  which  is  supposed  to  be 
the  only  real  dollar,  of  which  the  paper  currency  is  merely 
the  representative?  The  idea  called  up  by  these  phrases  is 
that  of  the  purchasing  power  of  the  sum  named  ;  or,  if  it  take 
a  more  concrete  form,  that  of  the  familiar  crisp  or  tattered 
greenback.  The  real  "  dollar"  is  not  the  gold  or  the  paper, 
but  a  conception  of  value  in  labor  or  its  products.  No  abso- 
lute permanently  fixed  standard  of  value  can  be  secured  under 
any  conceivable  system.  Value  is  not  determinable  with  the 
same  definiteness  and  precision  as  weight  or  bulk  or  distance, 
and  least  of  all  can  it  be  fixed  by  adopting  as  the  standard  of 
measurement  a  commodity  which  of  itself  fluctuates  in  value 
as  the  supply  becomes  scarce  or  plentiful.  Obviously,  when 
any  article  which  has  in  itself  value  is  fixed  upon  as  the 
standard,  its  supposed  unchangeableness  can  only  be  main- 
tained by  artificial  fluctuations  in  the  value  of  other  articles 
which  become  relatively  high  in  proportion  to  its  plentifulness, 
and  are  said  to  fall  in  value,  when  it  becomes  scarce.  This 
is  illustrated  by  the  article  above  quoted  from  the  "Week.  If 
other  property  has  "  depreciated  in  value  by  20  or  25  per 
cent,  during  the  past  five  years,"  it  is  not  because  it  is  really 
any  the  less  valuable,  but  simply  because  gold  is  scarcer  and 
from  its  position  as  the  regulator  of  all  other  values,  relatively 
more  valuable. 


THE  POLITICS  OF  LABOR.  47 

Were  the  gold  basis  a  genuine  thing,  did  the  actual  gold 
coinage  bear  the  proportion  to  the  total  volume  of  money  in 
circulation  which  it  should  do  to  justify  the  theories  of  the 
metallic  currency  advocates,  the  consequences  of  this  fluctua- 
tion would  be  much  more  severely  felt  than  they  are  at  pres- 
ent. As  it  is,  the  value  of  money  is  steadied,  as  it  were,  and 
the  rise  or  fall  of  prices  lessened  by  the  comparatively  large 
volume  of  paper  in  circulation  in  proportion  to  that  of  gold. 
A  currency  without  intrinsic  value  is  better  adapted  to  the 
presentation  of  the  ideal  standard  of  purchasing  power  signi- 
fied by  the  "  dollar  "  than  one  the  commodity-value  of  which 
is  subjected  to  continual  fluctuations,  calculated  to  raise  or 
depress  its  relative  worth  as  compared  with  the  products,  the 
value  of  which  is  subjected  to  its  measurement. 

Most  writers  upon  this  question  confuse  the  subject  by  in- 
troducing a  host  of  historical  details  as  to  the  origin  and 
functions  of  money,  with  the  object  of  showing  that  in  the 
earlier  ages  the  idea  of  intrinsic  value  was  inseparable  from 
money.  They  trace  the  beginning  of  the  monetary  system 
from  the  use  of  cattle  and  cowries,  by  pastoral  and  barbarous 
peoples,  as  a  means  of  superseding  barter,  to  the  general  adop- 
tion, as  civilization  progressed,  of  a  gold  and  silver  coinage ; 
and  infer  that,  because  the  various  commodities  used  from 
time  to  time  as  money  possessed  an  inherent  value,  there- 
fore it  is  an  essential  quality  and  characteristic  of  money. 
This  is  altogether  a  misleading  argument;  in  the  ruder  stages 
of  social  development  it  was  necessary  that  the  medium  of  ex- 
change should  possess  intrinsic  value.  When  commerce  was 
of  an  intermittent  and  transitory  character,  society  insecure 
and  government  unstable,  nothing  else  than  a  commodity 
would  answer  the  purposes  of  money.  Paper  money  is  only 
possible  in  connection  with  a  thoroughly  established  com- 
mercial system,  with  all  the  modern  agencies  and  appliances, 
and  with  the  guarantee  of  a  settled  government.  At  a  time 
when  business  transactions  were  few  and  of  the  simplest  kind, 
the  mechanism  of  exchange  unknown,  and  the  vicissitudes  of 
war  or  social  disturbance  always  imminent,  no  man  would 


48  THE  POLITICS  OF  LABOR, 

part  with  his  property  in  the  way  of  trade  except  in  return 
for  some  object  prized  and  sought  after  on  its  own  account — 
something  having  an  actual  value  irrespective  of  political  dis- 
turbances and  interferences  with  the  primitive  system  of  traffic. 
Paper  money  is  the  product  of  a  high  stage  of  enlightenment, 
incompatible  altogether  with  the  ideas  and  wants  of  barbar- 
ism or  semi-civilization.  That  at  first  it  should  be  based  on  coin, 
and  brought  into  use  as  an  ingenious  means  of  supplementing 
a  defective  supply  of  the  precious  metals  was  a  necessary 
phase  of  the  process  of  evolution,  by  which  the  barbaric  idea 
of  intrinsic  value  as  a  requisite  of  money  is  being  slowly 
eliminated. 

But  to  go  back  to  first  principles,  as  the  orthodox  political 
economists  are  so  fond  of  doing.  The  essential  feature  of  a 
circulating  medium  is  the  general  agreement  to  .accept  it  as 
an  equivalent  and  measure  of  the  value  of  goods  sold  or 
services  rendered ;  its  intrinsic  value  or  otherwise  is  merely  an 
incident.  This  agreement,  at  first  a  matter  of  individual  com- 
pact, then  a  general  understanding,  the  outgrowth  of  custom, 
and  finally  ratified  and  expressed  by  law,  rendering  a  particular 
coinage  or  currency  a  legal  tender,  is  the  real  money  basis. 

There  is  no  appreciable  intrinsic  value  in  a  postage  stamp. 
Yet  every  man  who  is  in  the  habit  of  writing  letters  will 
readily  accept  stamps  at  their  face  value  to  an  amount  limited 
by  his  probable  requirements  within  a  short  period.  That 
he  may  not  care  to  accept  a  larger  quantity  is  due  to  the  fact 
that  the  kind  of  service  they  will  procure  is  restricted  to  a 
single  function.  That  he  is  willing  to  accept  any,  is  due  to  the 
absolute  guarantee  of  the  State  that  the  stamp  will  procure 
the  single  kind  of  service  specified.  If  the  government  has  the 
power  to  impart  an  exchangeable  value  to  a  square  inch  of 
paper,  by  guaranteeing  the  performance  of  a  certain  valuable 
service  for  the  possessor,  so  that,  though  its  purchasing  power 
is  legally  restricted  to  one  direction,  stamps  readily  pass  cur- 
rent as  small  change,  how  can  it  be  doubted  that  if  the  govern- 
ment were  to  make  paper  money  as  legal  tender  for  all  trans- 
actions, including  all  taxes  and  debts  due  to  itself,  it  would 


THE  POLITICS  OF  LABOR.  "  49 

answer  all  the  purpose  of  a  national  currency  irrespective  of 
any  specie  basis  ?  Much  stress  has  been  laid  upon  the  supposed 
fact  that  such  a  currency  would  not  be  available  for  foreign 
trade,  or  exchangeable  with  the  gold-based  currencies  of  Eu- 
rope except  at  a  heavy  loss.  It  might  not  be  so  great  a  mis- 
fortune from  the  standpoint  of  labor  as  it  doubtless  appears 
to  the  bourgeois  mind,  if  the  foreign  trade,  which  on  our  side 
principally  consists  of  the  importation  of  luxuries  which  could 
either  be  very  advantageously  dispensed  with  or  manufac- 
tured at  home,  were  considerably  curtailed ;  nor  yet  if  the 
annual  rush  of  wealthy  Americans  to  Europe,  to  waste  in  dis- 
sipation and  extravagance  the  means  extorted  from  labor,  were 
also  checked,  by  reason  of  the  inconvertibility  of  fiat  money 
into  gold  excepting  at  a  heavy  discount.  The  foreign-trade 
bugbear  may  have  its  terrors  for  the  profit-mongering,  specu- 
lating class ;  for  those  whose  profits  or  pleasures  or  both  depend 
on  the  commercial  relations  of  this  country  Avith  Europe.  It 
has  none  for  the  toiler  who  only  sees  in  the  restriction  of  im- 
portations and  foreign  travel  the  stimulus  to  increased  pro- 
duction and  expenditure  at  home.  But  it  is  not  probable  that 
the  discount  upon  an  American  irredeemable  currency  would 
be  as  heavy  as  is  anticipated.  Our  debts  to  Europe  are  paid 
neither  in  gold  nor  in  paper,  but  in  exports ;  and  so  long  as  the 
foreigner's  demand  for  our  wheat,  corn,  cattle,  sugar,  cotton, 
and  other  staples  of  production  was  maintained,  and  America 
held  its  position  as  an  exporting  nation,  the  money  which  was 
available  for  their  purchase  would  maintain  even  its  exchang- 
able  value  abroad. 

It  is  true  that  the  history  of  finance  records  very  many  in- 
stances of  depreciated  paper  currencies.  But  the  reason  can 
always  be  traced  to  some  other  adequate  cause  than  the  in- 
herent unsoundness  of  the  theory  of  fiat  money — generally  to 
a  complication  of  causes,  any  one  of  which  would  be  sufficient 
to  result  in  depreciation.  Either  the  currency  assumes  to  be 
a  promise  to  pay  gold,  which  is  notoriously  impoesible  of  ful- 
fillment, or  the  government  issuing  it  is  unstable  and  liable  to 
be  pyerthrown?  or  the  country  is  backward  and  unproductive 


50  THE  POLITICS  OF  LABOR. 

owing  to  wars,  revolutions,  and  the  unprogressive  character  of 
the  people.  When  a  government  refuses  to  accept  its  own 
currency  in  payment  of  customs  duties,  as  did  the  United  States 
during  the  war  of  the  rebellion,  the  necessity  of  obtaining 
gold  to  meet  them,  as  a  matter  of  course  depreciates  the  paper. 
To  quote  the  examples  of  Hayti  or  the  insecure  and  chronically 
disturbed  South  American  States,  or  to  instance  the  Confed- 
erate money,  the  value  of  which  was  contingent  upon  the  suc- 
cess of  a  rebellion,  or  the  French  assignats  issued  by  a  revolu- 
tionary government,  not  as  money,  but  as  bonds  secured  by 
land,  itself  of  depreciated  and  uncertain  value,  in  condemna- 
tion of  the  principle  of  fiat  money,  is  a  flagrant  perversion  of 
the  truth.  Governments  in  desperate  straits  have  frequently 
resorted  to  the  expedient  of  issuing  paper  promises  to  pay  gold, 
and  the  ruin  and  disturbance  which  have  resulted  from  the 
absence  of  every  condition  and  element  which  all  advocates 
of  absolute  money  recognize  as  essential  to  the  system,  are 
most  unfairly  charged  against  it  by  the  advocates  of  metallic 
currency. 

Not  theleast  of  the  advantages  of  an  irredeemable  paper  cur- 
rency over  an  issue  based  upon  gold  would  be  that  in  case  of 
undue  inflation,  instead  of  having  to  resort  to  a  spasmodic  con- 
traction, such  as  caused  such  widespread  calamity  at  the  time 
of  the  resumption  of  specie  payments  after  the  war,  it  would 
merely  be  necessary  to  wait  until  the  growth  of  population  and 
the  increasing  demands  of  a  rapidly  expanding  commerce  and 
industry  restored  the  equilibrium.  A  currency  scientifically 
proportioned  to  the  demands  of  trade  would  right  itself,  should 
it  be  issued  in  too  ample  a  volume,  without  causing  injustice 
to  any  class  ;  an  inflated  specie-based  currency,  on  the  other 
hand,  enriches  the  gold  monopolist  at  the  expense  of  the  pro- 
ducer during  the  period  of  contraction.  It  lends  itself  to  the 
exactions  of  the  usurer,  and  enables  the  capitalist-employer  to 
depress  wages,  by  the  artificial  restrictions  it  imposes  on  pro- 
duction, and  the  consequent  increase  of  competition  among 
laborers. 

That  plenty  of  money  will  not  of  itself  set  the  wheels  of  in.- 


THE  POLITICS  OF  LAB  OK.  51 

dustry  in  motion^  is  perhaps  a  truism ;  but  certainly  an  undue 
scarcity  of  the  currency  will  check  production,  where  other 
circumstances  are  favorable  to  its  expansion.  Money  is  the 
life-blood  of  industry,  and  though  its  free  circulation  may  not 
by  itself  either  cause  or  evidence  perfect  health,  yet  perfect 
health  is  impossible  without  it. 


CHAPTER  III. 

THE    NEW    POLITICAL   ECONOMY. 

What  constitutes  a  state  ? 
Not  high-raised  battlement  or  labored  mound, 

Thick  wall  or  moated  gate  ; 
Not  cities  proud,  with  spires  and  turrets  crowned, 

Not  bays  and  broad-armed  ports 
Where,  laughing  at  the  storm,  rich  navies  ride; 

Not  starred  and  spangled  courts 
Where  low-browed  baseness  wafts  perfume  to  pride. 

No  !  Men,  high-minded  men, 
With  powers  as  far  above  dull  brutes  endued 

In  forest,  brake,  or  den, 
As  these  excel  cold  rocks  and  brambles  rude. 

Men  who  their  duties  know, 
Know  too  their  rights  and  knowing  dare  maintain, 

Prevent  the  long-aimed  blow, 
And  crush  the  tyrant  while  they  rend  the  chain — 

These  constitute  a  state. 

SIB  WILLIAM  JONES. 

Political  economy  needs  to  be  re-written  from  the  stand- 
point of  the  Serjaan  on  the  Mount  and  the  Declaration  of 
Independence.  \  Hitherto  it  has  concerned  itself  only  with 
the  production  of  wealth  and  the  promotion  of  the  material 
interests  of  the  nation  in  bujkj  According  to  its  teaching,  na- 
tional prosperity  has  been  reckoned  by  the  aggregate  of  produc- 
tion and  accumulation — the  increase  of  exports  and  imports — 
the  volume  of  capital  invested  and  business  transacted.  It  takes 
£  no  account  of  equity  in  distribution^-the  degree  of  comfort 
and  independence  of  the  masses  of  the  people.  Labor  in  its 
eyes  is  simply  a  "  commodity  " — raw  material  to  be  used  up 


52  THE  POLITICS  OF  LABOR. 

in  the  production  of  wealth,  and  the  cheapness  of  which,  like 
the  cheapness  of  coal,  cotton,  iron  ore,  or  other  forms  of  raw 
material,  is  to  be  viewed  as  an  advantage  rather  than  a  detri- 
ment, because  it  tends  to  cheapen  production,  and  so  to  in- 
crease the  total  amount  of  national  wealth  at  the  year's  end. 
With  the  rights  of  the  laborer  as  a  man,  with  his  status  as  a 
citizen,  it  has  no  concern.  It  has  invented  the  lie  upon  which 
the  whole  industrial  and  competitive  system  is  based,  that  in- 
stead of  labor  being  primarily  entitled  as  of  right  to  the  pro- 
duct of  human  exertion  exercised  upon  natural  resources,  the 
prior  claim  rests  with  those  who  permit  access  to  those  re- 
sources and  supply  the  tools.  It  has  justified  the  assumption 
by  capitalism  of  the  power  to  control  and  fix  the  remunera- 
tion of  labor,  retaining  the  whole  surplus  as  profit.  It  has 
inverted  the  natural  order  of  things,  and,  instead  of  regarding 
capital,  or  the  proceeds  of  previous  labor,  as  a  mere  subsidiary 
aid  to  further  production  in  the  hands  of  labor,  regards  it  as 
the  prime  mover  and  directing  force. 

It  may  be  urged  here  that  political  economy  in  this  only 
recognizes  established  conditions ;  that,  as  a  matter  of  fact, 
capitalism  does  control  and  fix  the  remuneration  of  labor,  and 
consequently  political  economy  is  not  to  blame  for  its  teach- 
ings in  regard  to  the  working  of  the  system.  But  political 
economy  does  more  than  this.  Its  doctrines  furnish  the  apol- 
ogists for  capitalism  with  a  store-house  of  argument,  to  show 
that  the  existing  system  is  just,  natural,  and  inevitable.  Its 
teachers  are,  for  the  most  part,  the  tenacious  and  uncompromis- 
ing upholders  of  the  usurpation  by  which  the  rights  of  man 
are  subordinated  to  the  interests  of  property.  It  has  laid 
down  the  dictum,  that  society  has  no  right  to  interfere, 
through  its  agent  the  government,  so  as  to  ensure  a  fair  distri- 
bution of  wealth  ;  but  that  the  economic  laws  of  competition 
and  supply-and-demand  must  have  free  course  and  be  glori- 
fied, as  securing  by  their  unrestricted  operation  a  more  desir- 
able and  satisfactory  result  than  could  otherwise  be  obtained. 

The  orthodox  political  economy  is  more  than  an  exposition 
of  the  manner  in  which — certain  conditions  being  granted — 


TUB  POLITICS  OF  LABOR.  53 

certain  natural  laws  will  operate.  It  starts  by  assuming  that 
the  conditions  are  not  only  actual,  but  intrinsically  beneficent 
and  permanent,  and  finds  in  the  existence  of  the  laws  which 
it  discovers  a  reason  why  their  operations  should  not  be  in- 
terfered with.  It  is  the  bulwark  and  buttress  of  the  system 
of  monopoly  and  competition.  As  the  pen  of  the  historian 
has  been  employed  to  blacken  and  degrade  the  reputation  of 
the  Gracchi,  Jack  Cade,  Wat  Tyler  and  others,  who  have  in- 
curred the  deadly  hate  of  the  powerful  and  wealthy  by  their 
support  of  the  rights  of  the  people,  so  the  ingenuity  of  the 
political  economist  has  been  devoted  to  combining  economic 
truths  and  half-truths,  right  reasonings  from  wrong  premises, 
and  false  deductions  from  axiomatic  principles,  into  a  com- 
pact system  of  doctrine,  by  which  public  opinion  has  been 
misled  into  imagining  that  existing  evils  were  irremediable. 
Thus,  injustice  and  oppression  have  been  sanctioned  in  the 
name  of  science. 

Labor  Reformers  have  been  accused  of  ignoring  demon- 
strated scientific  truths,  and  flying  in  the  face  of  eternal  and 
immutable  natural  laws,  when  they  have  proposed  to  remedy 
industrial  abuses  by  legislation.  Supposed  scientific  truths 
and  irreversible  natural  laws  have  so  frequently,  in  the  history 
of  the  world,  been  quoted  by  the  venal  or  short-sighted  de- 
fenders of  systems,  which  all  now  admit  to  have  been  opposed 
to  the  best  interests  of  society,  that  the  reproach  has  lost 
much  of  its  force.  Those  who  remember  how  the  name  of 
science  was  invoked  in  favor  of  negro  slavery  and  against 
the  higher  education  of  women — how  every  successive  stage 
of  human  progress  has  been  retarded  by  the  opposition  of- 
fered on  the  ground  that  the  proposed  reform  ran  counter  to 
immutable  laws,  will  not  be  disposed  to  admit  the  finality  of  the 
current  dogmas  of  political  economy. 

There  are  truths  embodied  in  the  doctrines  of  the  political 
economists  which  we  should  as  little  think  of  denying  as  the 
laws  of  gravitation  or  the  motion  of  the  earth  round  the  sun. 
But  the  inferences  which  are  drawn  from  these  truths  are 
often  false,  and  their  relations  to  the  questions  between 


54  THE  POLITICS  OF  LABOR. 

producer  and  consumer,  capitalist  and  laborer,  mis-stated. 
For  instance,  it  is  obviously  true  that  the  price  of  a  commod- 
ity is  regulated  by  supply  and  demand,  and  that  if  labor  be 
treated  as  a  commodity  its  price  will  also  be  fixed  by  the 
same  inexorable  law.  To  infer  from  this,  that  existing  indus- 
trial relations  are  necessarily  permanent,  is  to  ignore  the  pos- 
sibility which  exists  of  changing,  not  the  law,  but  the  condi- 
tions under  which  the  law  operates.  Society,  while  recog- 
nizing to  the  full  the  immutability  of  the  law  of  supply  and 
demand,  may  neutralize  its  effect  either  by  regulating  the 
supply  so  as  to  bring  it  down  to  the  level  of  the  demand,  or 
by  taking  labor  altogether  out  of  the  category  of  commodi- 
ties. 

In  other  departments  than  political  economy,  natural  laws 
are  studied  as  much  in  order  to  interpose  an  artificial  check 
to  their  operations,  as  to  allow  them  unrestricted  scope.  It 
is  a  natural  law  that  a  certain  degree  of  cold  will  destroy  life. 
We  provide  against  it  by  thick  clothing  and  warm  houses. 
Under  the  laws  of  electricity,  lightning  will  fire  buildings,, 
and  kill  or  injure  the  occupants.  We  do  not  deny  or  ignore 
that  law  when  we  adopt  the  artificial  protection  of  a  lightning 
conductor.  We  simply  change  the  conditions  under  which  it 
operates.  Floods  and  storms,  pestilence  and  earthquakes,  en- 
danger the  safety  of  life  and  property.  Instead  of  submitting 
to  their  effects,  in  the  spirit  of  a  blind  fatalism,  science  en- 
deavors to  study  the  natural  laws  which  govern  them,  and  the 
methods  of  their  operation,  so  as  to  anticipate  and  counter- 
act them  by  artificial  means.  Modern  research  and  progress, 
the  improvements  and  inventions  of  which  we  boast,  the  ap- 
pliances and  methods  by  which  the  conditions  of  civilized  life 
are  rendered  possible,  represent  a  continual  struggle  to  over- 
come natural  obstacles,  and  to  interfere  with  the  workings  of 
natural  law.  In  the  realm  of  political  economy  alone  do  we 
find  the  exception.  Only  in  that  department  of  science  which 
deals  with  the  economic  forces"  regulating  production  and 
distribution,  is  the  existence  of  a  law  of  nature  regarded  as  an 
imperative  reason  for  holding  all  attempts  to  narrow  the  scope 


THE  POLITICS  OF  LABOR.  55 

of  its  working,  or  interpose  artificial  means  to  prevent  its  evil 
results,  as  unscientific,  irrational,  and  foredoomed  to  failure. 
To  find  a  parallel  to  the  fanaticism  which  looks  complacently 
upon  the  degradation  and  wretchedness  of  the  victims  of  in- 
dustrial competition,  because  their  condition  is  brought 
about  by  unchangeable  natural  laws,  we  must  look  back  to 
the  ages  of  superstition  and  ignorance,  when  the  ravages  of 
pestilence  were  regarded  as  proofs  of  the  Divine  wrath,  any 
attempt  to  arrest  which  would  be  equally  impious  and 
futile. 

PFhe  new  political  economy  must  be  based  upon  the  liberty 
and  brotherhood  of  man,  and  the  equal  right  of  all  to  natural 
resources  and  opportunities.  It  must  not  only  expound  the 
natural  laws  which  govern  the  distribution  of  wealth,  but 
where  those  laws  are  found  to  operate  unjustly,  it  must  point 
out  how  the  evil  effects  are  to  be  counteracted.  \Instead  of 
regarding  the  aggregate  volume  of  wealth  as  "the  test  of  na- 
tional greatness  and  welfare,  it  must  concern  itself  with  the 
condition  of  the  individual  citizen.  Its  highest  ideal  must  be 
the  greatest  possible  good  to  the  greatest  possible  number, 
and  its  constant  aim  to  secure  to  each  and  all  the  just  value 
of  their  services  to  the  community.  Labor,  and  labor  alone, 
either  of  hand  or  brain,  should  be  regarded  as  entitling  any 
to  share  the  product  which  only  labor  can  create.  Land  must 
be  held  as  the  common  heritage  to  which  all  have  an  equal 
natural  right,  and  which  none  can  therefore  be  permitted  to 
use  without  paving  into  the  common  fund  the  value  of  its 
usufruct,  and  capital,  simply  as  the  tool  auxiliary  to  labor,  and 
subservient  to  the  will  of  its  creator. 

Adam  Smith,  the  father  of  political  economy,  has  stated  in 
plain  terms  the  axiomatic  truth,  that  labor  is  the  creator 
of  all  wealth.  In  the  fifth  chapter  of  his  "  Wealth  of  Nations  " 
we  read  : — 

'*  The  real  price  of  everything,  what  everything  really  costs 
to  the  man  who  wants  to  acquire  it,  is  the  toil  and  trouble 
of  acquiring  it.  What  everything  is  really  worth  to  the  man 
who  has  acquired  it,  and  who  wants  to  dispose  of  it,  or  ex- 


56  TEE  POLITICS  OF  LABOR. 

change  it  for  something  else,  is  the  toil  and  trouble  which 
it  can  save  to  himself,  and  which  it  can  impose  upon  other 
people.  What  is  bought  with  money,  or  with  goods,  is  pur- 
chased by  labor  as  much  as  what  we  acquire  by  the  toil  of 
our  own  body.  That  money  or  those  goods,  indeed,  save  us 
this  toil.  They  contain  the  value  of  a  certain  quantity  of 
labor  which  we  exchange  for  what  is  supposed  at  the  time  to 
contain  the  value  of  an  equal  quantity.  Labor  was  the  first 
price,  the  original  purchase-money,  that  was  paid  for  all 
things.  It  was  not  by  gold  or  silver,  but  by  labor  that  all 
the  wealth  of  the  world  was  originally  purchased,  and  its 
value  to  those  who  possess  it,  and  who  want  to  exchange  it  for 
some  new  productions,  is  precisely  equal  to  the  quantity  of 
labor  which  it  can  enable  them  to  purchase  or  command." 

The  broad  principle  thus  enunciated  strikes  at  the  root  of 
the  entire  system  of  capitalism.  If  all  value  is  based  upon 
labor  alone,  it  follows  that  the  only  honest  title  which  any 
man  can  hold  to  wealth  created  by  others  is  by  giving  an 
equivalent  in  his  own  labor  for  what  he  receives.  If  he  does 
not  do  this,  if  he  depends  simply  on  his  parchment  or  paper 
monopoly  "right"  to  the  soil,  to  exact  a  personal  tribute  for 
the  use  of  the  land  to  which  all  have  an  equal  right ;  if,  by 
usury  or  profits  apart  from  the  return  for  labor  of  superin- 
tendence, and  representing  merely  the  accumulative  power  of 
capital,  he  enriches  himself  without  rendering  a  just  equivalent, 
he  has  gained  wealth  dishonestly.  He  has  absorbed  what 
rightly  belongs  to  others  ;  to  those  whose  labor  created  it. 

It  is,  in  many  cases,  extremely  difficult  to  draw  the  line 
and  say  just  where  the  process  of  dishonest  accumulation 
begins,  and  how  far  a  large  class  of  capitalists  are  rendering 
value  by  their  brain-work  for  what  they  receive.  But  when, 
in  the  course  of  a  few  years,  men  are  able  to  count  their 
fortunes  in  millions,  or  when  the  processes  by  which  money  is 
accumulated  are  obviously  such  as  do  not  tend  to  return  so- 
ciety any  benefit,  there  can  be  no  possible  question  that  they 
are  receiving  from  the  labor  of  others,  wealth  for  which  they 
have  rendered  no  substantial  return.  Take  the  great  land- 


THE  POLITICS  OF  LAKOU.  57 

owners  and  money-kings,  and  apply  the  test  to  their  ac- 
cumulations. What  have  they  given  in  labor  to  the  world 
as  a  return  for  the  produce  of  labor  which  they  absorb  in  such 
ample  measure?  In  some  cases  they  do  a  considerable 
amount  of  head-work  it  is  true,  but  it  is  often  work  that 
benefits  nobody,  that  does  not  increase  by  one  iota  the  sum 
total  of  production,  or  the  facilities  of  distribution.  The 
men  who  are  engaged  in  struggling  for  fortunes  on  the  stock 
exchange  work  hard  after  their  fashion,  in  scheming  and 
planning  to  outwit  each  other.  But  their  labor  is  unprofita- 
ble to  the  community.  It  is  non-productive.  They  are  no 
more  use  than  so  many  gamblers  or  tramps,  and  render  no 
value  whatever  for  what  they  receive.  A  landlord  who  merely 
lives  on  ground  rents  is  a  thief  pure  and  simple — a  curnberer 
of  the  earth  and  a  parasite  upon  industry.  A  landlord  who 
builds  and  rents  houses  does  a  public  service  and  confers  a 
measure  of  value  in  return  for  the  income  he  draws.  The 
capitalist  who  is  a  mere  usurer  and  receives  the  produce  of 
others'  toil,  without  contributing  either  by  thought  or  exertion 
to  the  increase  of  the  production,  lives  by  legalized  theft* 
But  the  capitalist  who  personally  gives  direction  to  labor  is 
a  producer.  Whether  he  is  also  in  any  measure  a  thief  or 
not,  depends  entirely  on  whether  the  return  he  gets  for  his 
services  is  adequate  or  exorbitant.  Frequently,  not  content 
with  the  fair  value  of  his  own  labor  of  superintendence,  he 
enriches  himself  by  stealing  from  his  employes  a  portion  of 
their  share  of  the  common  earnings.  It  is  thus  that  large 
fortunes  are  realized. 

Judged  by  this  test  of  the  returns  made  in  labor  for  the 
produce  of  labor,  the  gains  of  capitalism  are  largely  the  result 
of  the  spoliation  of  the  workers,  even  where  they  are  not,  like 
the  fortunes  built  up  by  land-ownership,  usury  or  speculation, 
the  result  of  processes  which  confer  absolutely  no  benefit  on  the 
community.  It  has  often  been  charged  against  Labor  Re- 
formers that  they  ignore  or  undervalue  brain  labor;  that  the 
only  "  labor  "  they  recognize  is  that  of  the  wage-earner  or  the 
self-employed  manual  worker.  In  so  far  as  this  has  been  true 


58  THE  POLITICS  OF  LABOR. 

in  the  past  it  was  the  inevitable  result  of  a  system  which  re- 
gards capital  as  a  separate  interest  controlling  labor,  and 
merges  the  just  and  reasonable  rights  belonging  to  the  labor  of 
supervision  in  the  unjust  and  unreasonable  claim  of  the  capi- 
talist in  unlimited  profits.  It  is  not  by  necessary  and  legiti- 
mate brain  work  that  men  become  rich,  but  by  the  power  of 
monopoly  and  competition  to  concentrate  wealth  in  the  hands 
of  those  who  control  the  means  of  production.  Were  the 
system  of  distribution  altered  in  accordance  with  the  idea 
that  labor  alone  should  be  recognized  as  entitling  any  one  to 
share  in  the  benefits  of  production,  intellectual  toil  must  of 
course  participate  in  proportion  to  its  value. 

Under  the  present  system,  much  of  the  mental  work,  and  as 
a  consequence  much  of  the  physical  labor  of  the  world  also,  is 
misdirected,  so  that  it  is  either  valueless  or  positively  injurious. 
It  is  directed  not  to  increasing  production  or  perfecting  the 
machinery  of  distribution,  but  purely  to  self-aggrandizement, 
by  methods  that  are  destructive  and  serve  no  useful  purpose 
whatever. 

The  following  news  item,  which  appeared  in  the  newspapers 
in  the  fall  of  1885,  will  serve  as  an  illustration. 

"  LITTLE  ROCK,  ARK.  Nov.  19. — A  war  has  been  in  progress  for 
several  days  between  the  Arkansas  Telegraph  Co.,  and  the  St.  Louis 
Iron  Mountain  and  Southern  Railway  Co.  The  telegraph  men  have  been 
erecting  poles  on  the  line  of  railway  near  the  city,  and  railway  men  have 
taken  them  down  as  fast  as  they  were  put  up.  Each  pole  has  been  put 
up  and  taken  down  a  number  of  times  during  the  day.  Frequently,  while 
one  set  of  men  are  digging  a  hole,  the  other  set  are  shovelling  dirt  back 
into  it.  The  contest  is  really  between  the  Baltimore  and  Ohio  and 
Western  Union,  the  Arkansas  Co.  representing  the  latter.'7 

Though  this  is  a  particularly  aggravated  and  pronounced 
instance  of  the  waste  of  means  and  energy  caused  by  com- 
petition, it  is  by  no  means  an  isolated  case.  It  is  rather 
typical  of  the  entire  system  and  the  processes  that  are  con- 
tinually going  on  all  around  us  in  the  name  of  commercial  en- 
terprise. A  vast  proportion  of  the  labor  of  the  world  is  as 
badly  misdirected  and  as  futile  in  its  results  as  that  of  the 


THE  POLITICS  OF  LABOR.  59 

gangs  of  telegraph  and  railroad  men  kept  busy  in  undoing 
each  other's  work.  What  are  the  men  who  "defy  competi- 
tion "  and  "  will  not  be  undersold,"  the  keen,  pushing  leaders 
of  mercantile  enterprise,  doing,  but  seeking  continually  to 
cross  each  other's  paths  and  cut  each  other's  throats,  and 
undo  what  their  rivals  have  accomplished  ?  Half  the  energies 
of  the  organizers  of  the  world's  financial,  railroad,  manufact- 
uring, and  commercial  systems  are  devoted  to  fighting  each 
other,  to  filling  up  the  holes  that  their  rivals  have  dug,  and 
pulling  downjsfljes  they  have  erected— to  making  their  work 
ineffective.  /Competition  implies  a  continual  warfare,  which, 
like  all  warfare,  results  in  a  drain  and  a  tax  on  productive  in- 
dustry. 

Here,  for  instance,  are  a  dozen  wholesale  merchants  in  a  line 
where  half  their  number  would  be  amply  sufficient  to  supply 
every  legitimate  demand.  They  accordingly  engage  in  a 
desperate  struggle,  each  fighting  to  keep  his  connections  and 
take  as  much  business  as  possible  away  from  his  neighbors.^ 
Each  sends  out  his  drummers  to  coax,  importune,  and  tempt, 
the  retail  dealer  into  making  purchases.  Most  of  their  work 
is  utterly  wasted  and  unprofitable  energy.  They  are  laboring 
to  undo  the  work  of  others,  just  as  much  as  the  pick-and-shovel 
brigades  of  the  rival  corporations  in  Arkansas.  And  it  is  so 
throughout  every  department  in  which  competition  prevails. 
Why  are  the  prices  charged  for  life  insurance  by  the  regular 
companies  just  about  double  what  they  ought  to  be  ?  Because 
these  companies,  to  get  business,  have  to  spend  a  very  large 
portion  of  their  receipts  in  fighting  each  other.  They  put  up 
enormous  and  expensive  buildings  for  show,  and  deluge  the 
country  with  literature  printed  in  costly,  elaborate  style,  ex- 
tolling themselves  and  disparaging  their  rivals.  Instead  of 
waiting  until  people  who  wish  to  insure  come  to  them,  they 
send  out  canvassers  on  big  commissions  to  drum  up  business. 
When  one  company  adopts  this  expensive  system,  of  course 
others  in  self-defence  are  driven  to  follow  their  example,  and 
the  result  is,  that  the  cost  of  all  this  waste  and  loss  is  paid  by 
the  public,  Jt  is  all  entirely  unnecessary — all  a  useless  expen- 


60  THE  POLITICS  OF  LABOR. 

diture  of  labor  and  money.  But  the  competitive  system  de- 
mands it,  and  industry  bears  the  burden. 

Wherever  there  are  two  or  more  railroads  doing  the  busi- 
ness that  could  just  as  easily  be  done  by  one,  there  is  a  waste 
of  labor  and  a  loss  of  capital,  though  it  may  not  be  quite  as 
apparent  on  the  surface  as  in  the  case  of  the  battle  of  the  rival 
corporations  in  Arkansas.  But,  practically,  it  is  just  as  de- 
structive. Supposing  the  employes  of  one  of  the  superfluous 
roads  should  go  in  a  body,  tear  up  the  track,  and  burn  the 
rolling-stock  and  freight-sheds  of  the  other  line.  Everybody 
would  be  horrified  at  the  awful  waste  of  material.  But  a  little 
consideration  will  show  that  there  would  be  no  more  waste  or 
sacrifice  in  such  a  high-handed  act  of  aggression  than  there  is 
in  keeping  up  two  roads  to  do  the  work  of  one.  The  waste 
lies  in  the  mis-employed  labor  and  capital  spent  in  multiplying 
undertakings  not  demanded  in  the  public  interest. 

In  the  railway  and  telegraph  world,  competition  is  never  of 
long  duration ;  it  is  always  followed  by  combination  or  amal- 
gamation in  some  form,  and  then  up  go  rates,  and  down  go 
wages.  The  losses  to  capitalism  of  the  period  of  competition 
are  made  good  many  times  over  by  systematic  extortion.  The 
business  of  filling  up  holes  dug  by  others  will  have  to  be  paid 
for  just  .as  though  it  wrere  productive  industry.  What  a  vast 
amount  of  the  world's  best  energies,  what  countless  millions 
of  money,  have  been  sunk  in  the  unprofitable,  stupid,  wicked 
work  of  pulling  down  what  others  have  built,.and  filling  up 
where  others  have  dug.  The  warring  armies  of  laborers  in 
Arkansas,  one  trying  to  build  and  the  other  to  demolish,  are 
representatives  of  the  state  of  industry  and  commerce  to  day, 
the  world  over.  When  will  the  senseless  system  cease,  and 
men  learn  that  it  is  better  to  co-operate  than  to  compete  ?  to 
be  all  builders  and  none  destroyers  ?  Not  so  long  certainly  as 
the  selfish,  soulless  forces  of  capitalism  and  individual  avarice 
have  the  control  of  industrial  organization. 

The  following  passage  from  "  Poor's  Manual  of  Railroads" 
for  1885  gives  some  idea  of  the  enormous  extent  of  this  waste, 
from  misdirected  labor  and  uselessly  employed  capital  spent 


THE  POLITICS  OF  LABOR,  61 

in  undertakings  not  demanded  in  the  public  interest,  but  origi- 
nated in  a  spirit  of  aggression. 

"  Of  the  40,000  miles  of  line  built  in  the  five  years  ending  with  1883, 
no  small  part  was  built  on  speculation,  and  for  that  very  reason  paral- 
leled already  existing  lines.  The  most  striking  examples  of  this  kind, 
examples  so  often  adduced,  are  the  West  Shore  and  "  Nickel  Plate  " 
lines.  The  general  demoralization  which  has  prevailed  in  railroad 
circles  is  due  more  to  the  construction  of  these  two,  and  to  the  ill-fort- 
une which  attended  them,  than  to  any  other  cause,  or  it  may  be  said  to 
all  other  causes.  *  *  *  Although  West  Shore  and  "  Nickel  Plate  " 
seemed  to  be  the  occasion  of  the  great  catastrophe  of  1883  and  1884,  the 
real  causes  had  been  long  at  work  in  the  wonderful  success  of  signal 
instances  of  *  watering,'  of  which  the  Pacific  lines,  the  New  York  Cen- 
tral, and  Lake  Shore  are  striking  examples.  Incited  by  their  success, 
our  whole  people  became  wild  upon  the  subject  of  railroad  construction, 
believing  that  two  or  three  dollars  could  easily  be  made  for  every  dollar 
put  up,  either  by  the  success  of  their  ventures  or  by  the  sale  of  their  se- 
curities. In  this  mania  or  delusion  the  capitalist  and  the  adventurer 
alike  shared.  The  promoters  of  West  Shore,  men  of  capital,  put  up 
their  money  in  good  earnest  under  the  idea  that  they  were  embarking 
in  an  honorable  and  meritorious  enterprise.  The  promoters  of  Nickel 
Plate  built  their  line  on  speculation  and  for  the  purpose  of  selling  it, 
securities  being  issued  at  the  rate  of  two  or  three  dollars  for  every  dollar 
of  cash  paid.  No  small  portion  of  the  40,000  miles  constructed  in  the  five 
years  ending  with  1883  was  built  upon  the  same  plan  and  with  the  same 
object.  Whatever  their  fate  a  large  number  of  them  became  competitors 
for  a  business  for  which  ample  provision  had  already  been  made  by  ex- 
isting lines.  Railroads  unfortunately  seem  to  reverse  the  rule  of  the  sur- 
vival of  the  fittest  to '  the  survival  of  the  unfittest.'  They  can  be  used  but 
for  one  purpose,  and  when  they  go  into  the  hands  of  receivers  they  arc 
to  be  run  so  long  as  the  operating  expenses  can  be  paid.  If  the  earnings 
are  not  sufficient  for  this  purpose,  they  are  to  be  eked  out  by  *  Receivers' 
certificates.'  The  country  is  now  at  about  its  lowest  depth,  so  far  as 
railroads  are  concerned.  The  evil  done,  the  remedy  has  now  to  be  ap- 
plied." 

A  very  large  proportion  of  the  brain  labor  that  is  most 
highly  remunerated  is  either  useless  or  absolutely  injurious  to 
society,  such  as  that  devoted  to  the  construction  of  the  West 
Shore  and  Nickel  Plate  railroad  lines,  with  the  results  above 
depicted,  and  the  "work"  of  land  speculators,  gamblers  either 
pn  or  off  the  stock  exchange,  usurers,  corporation  lawyers,  and 


62  THE  POLITICS  OF  LABOE. 

the  great  majority  of  politicians.  In  the  same  category  must 
also  be  placed  very  many  of  the  class  who  mould  public 
opinion — editors,  preachers,  lecturers,  magazine  writers,  and 
college  professors.  Much  of  their  labor  is  devoted  to  incul- 
cating wrong  ideas ;  to  making  the  worse  appear  the  better 
cause;  to  justifying  and  apologizing  for  social  abuses.  Igno- 
rantly  or  knowingly,  they  prostitute  their  talents  and  oppor- 
tunities to  the  service  of  Mammon,  and  antagonize  the  rights 
of  labor.  The  value  of  their  services  to  society  is  often  in 
inverse  ratio  to  the  remuneration  they  actually  receive.  Men- 
tal services  of  incalculable  value  are  frequently  poorly  re- 
warded, or  not  rewarded  at  all.  The  great  poets,  inventors, 
thinkers — the  intellectual  heroes  and  saviors  of  the  race,  the 
men  who  propound  new  truths  or  are  quick  to  grasp  the  signifi- 
cance of  altered  conditions  and  apply  old  principles  in  a  new 
way — the  pioneers  of  thought — seldom  indeed  reap  the  fruit 
of  their  labors.  They  are  fortunate  if  they  win  a  bare  subsist- 
ence. 

"  Serve  not  for  any  man's  wages, 

Pleasure,  nor  glory  nor  gold ; 
Not  by  her  side  are  they  won 
Who  saith  unto  each  of  you  '  Son, 
Silver  and  gold  have  I  none; 
I  give  hut  the  love  of  all  ages, 

And  the  life  of  my  people  of  old.' " 

The  poverty  in  which  mechanical  inventors  have  lived  and 
died,  while  leaving  to  the  world  inventions  which  have  im- 
mensely increased  the  productive  capacity  of  labor,  is  notori- 
ous. The  inventor,  a  poor  man  as  a  rule,  toils  and  struggles 
for  years  in  bringing  his  scheme  to  perfection — sacrificing  his 
ease,  his  pleasure,  and  his  health,  frequently  denying  himself 
needed  food  and  rest,  bending  every  energy  of  mind  and  of 
body  to  the  accomplishment  of  the  dream  of  his  life.  And 
when  success  is  at  last  achieved,  it  is  in  the  great  majority  of 
cases  the  man  of  money  who  reaps  the  benefit  of  the  invention, 
while  the  creative  genius  pines  in  poverty  and  neglect. 

If  the  extent  of  their  services  to  society  were  the  measure 


THE  POLITICS  OF  LABOR.  63 

of  the  extent  to  which  the  product  of  the  labor  of  others 
should  be  at  their  disposal,  a  very  large  class  of  brain-workers, 
now  honored  and  wealthy,  would  have  no  claim  whatever  to  the 
emoluments  they  now  enjoy.  On  the  other  hand,  many  who 
toil  on  in  penury  and  obscurity,  whose  creative  powers  in  the 
departments  of  invention,  literature,  and  art,  or  whose  facul- 
ties for  the  organization  and  direction  of  physical  labor  have 
hitherto  secured  scant  recognition,  would  have  a  fuller 
measure  of  reward.  Under  the  present  system,  the  returns  of 
brain-labor,  when  exercised  by  the  capitalist,  are  simply  what 
he  can  secure  under  the  workings  of  monopoly  and  competi- 
tion ;  when  exercised  by  the  wage-earner  its  remuneration  is 
measured  by  its  adaptability  to  the  purposes  of  capitalism. 
In  neither  case  does  the  element  of  labor-value  given  to  society 
enter  into  the  account. 

We  are  living  under  a  system  of  one-sided  Socialism. 
Political  economists,  capitalistic  editors,  full-fed  optimists, 
and  sleek  pulpiteers  of  the  Henry  Ward  Beecher  and  Joseph 
Cook  stamp  may  deprecate  with  all  the  energy  at  their 
command  the  theories  of  Socialism  proper.  They  may  ex- 
huust  the  resources  of  argument  and  ridicule  in  demonstrat- 
ing the  injustice  and  utter  impracticability  of  the  Socialistic 
system.  They  may  ransack  history  to  show  the  failure  of  all 
attempts  to  re-organize  society  on  such  a  basis,  or  to  estab- 
lish permanently  successful  communities  on  the  principle  of 
equal  rights.  They  may  adduce  from  theology  and  science 
principles  which  they  consider  conclusive  against  the  future 
accomplishment  of  any  such  scheme.  But  in  the  meantime 
the  practical  developments  which  are  taking  place  all  around 
us  are  a  demonstration  of  the  tendency  of  modern  civiliza- 
tion towards  a  more  perfect  system  of  industrial  organization, 
partaking  largely  of  the  Socialistic  character.  In  some  of  its 
phases  Socialism  is  already  here.  Every  advance  from  the 
primitive  system  of  isolation  and  self-dependence,  every  im- 
provement which  brings  closer  together  the  producing  forces, 
which  simplifies  the  mechanism  of  exchange  and  distribution, 
which  facilitates  division  of  labor,  and  increases  the  de- 


64  THE  POLITICS  OF  LABOR. 

pendence  of  the  individual  upon  the  community,  limiting  the 
scope  of  his  unaided  powers,  while  increasing  immensely  his 
productive  capacity,  has  been  an  advance  towards  Socialism 
in  its  co-operative  phase.  Here  again  the  vocabulary  of  po- 
litical economy  fails  us  for  the  right  word  to  convey  the  mean- 
ing. Co-operation  literally  implies  "  working  together,"  but 
its  modern  secondary  meaning  is  the  working  together  of 
those  who  have  a  common  interest  in  the  result  of  their  en- 
terprise proportionate  to  its  returns.  This  kind  of  co-opera- 
tion has  not  made  much  headway,  but  co-operation  in  the 
literal  sense — that  is  to  say,  industrial  organization  under  the 
direction  of  capitalism — the  association  of  workers  together 
by  hundreds  and  thousands,  under  the  same  control  and  for 
the  same  ends,  and  the  dependence  one  upon  another  of  the 
enterprises  in  which  they  are  engaged,  gives  us  practically 
Socialism  in  work  in  connection  with  individualism  in  the 
distribution  of  returns.  Under  this  anomalous  semi-Social- 
ism the  laborer  gets  the  worst  of  it  all  around.  He  has  all 
the  disabilities  of  individualism  and  Socialism  combined. 
His  remuneration  is  fixed  by  competition,  under  the  law  of 
supply  and  demand,  without  regard  to  the  productive  power 
of  his  labor.  Division  of  labor  confines  his  training  to  one 
department,  and  he  loses  that  general  adaptability  and  ca- 
pacity for  doing  many  things  which  the  laborer  possesses 
where  work  is  less  specialized.  In  case  of  a  revolution  in  his 
particular  branch  of  industry,  owing  to  commercial  changer: 
or  new  inventions,  he  is  frequently  unable  to  adapt  himself 
to  altered  conditions,  or  find  occupation  outside  the  narrow 
groove  to  which  he  has  all  his  life  been  accustomed.  Social- 
ism in  production  only  has  reduced  him  to  the  level  of  an 
automaton — a  portion  of  the  industrial  mechanism — and  largely 
deprived  him  of  the  self-supporting  faculty,  should  he  by  any 
chance  drop  out  of  his  place  ;  while  the  compensation  for  his 
loss  ot  self-hood  and  absolute  dependence  upon  social  adjust- 
ments which  true  Socialism  would  offer  in  a  recognized  claim 
upon  the  common  production  and  an  assured  future,  is  want- 
ing. The  opponents  of  Socialism,  who  dwell  upon  its  injuri- 


THE  POLITICS  OF  LABOR.  65 

ous  effects  upon  national  and  individual  character,  by  lessen- 
ing self-reliance  and  hardihood,  and  degrading  mankind  into 
a  race  of  weaklings  all  looking  to  be  helped  and  provided 
for  by  the  state,  completely  overlook  the  fact  that  the  modern 
industrial  system  is  doing  for  the  mass  of  wage-earners,  in 
this  respect,  the  very  worst  that  State  Socialism  could  possi- 
bly do.  The  tendency  of  large  enterprises  to  absorb  or  crush 
out  smaller  ones  is  so  fully  recognized  at  this  stage  of  the 
controversy,  that  there  is  no  need  to  emphasize  it.  In  every 
department  the  field  for  individual  energy  is  being  continu- 
ally narrowed,  and  the  possibilities  of  success  for  new  compet- 
itors diminished  by  the  consolidation  and  welding  together 
oLejd3ting  interests. 

("Enterprise"  has  long  been  regarded  by  Americans  as  a 
cardinal  virtue,  sufficient  to  atone  for  many  defects  of  char- 
acter. It  is  natural  that  in  a  new  country  where  much  rough, 
arduous,  and  dangerous  work  had  to  be  done  to  prepare  the 
way  for  civilization,  the  pioneer  and  the  pathfinder  should  be 
held  in  high  esteem.  The  circumstances  under  which  Amer- 
ica has  been  settled,  the  wilderness  reclaimed,  industries  es- 
tablished, the  means  of  travel  and  communication  and  all  the 
agencies  of  civilized  life  introduced,  not  by  government  in- 
strumentality, but  by  the  unconquerable  resolution  and  energy 
of  individual  citizens,  tended  to  set  a  high  value  on  the  qual- 
ity of  enterprise.  When,  as  was  often  the  case,  the  wisdom 
of  any  particular  course  could  only  be  decided  by  the  event, 
it  is  not  surprising  that  Col.  Davy  Crockett's  maxim,  "  Be 
sure  you  are  right,  then  go  ahead,"  became  abbreviated  in 
the  popular  acceptation  to  "  go  ahead  anyhow."  Enterprise 
that  no  obstacles  could  daunt  and  no  failure  discourage, — en- 
terprise that  flung  caution  to  the  winds,  and  risked  everything 
on  a  single  chance, — enterprise  that  took  its  life  in  its  hand 
and  braved  all  dangers,  that  encountered  seeming  impossibil- 
ities, and  set  at  defiance  all  precedents  and  rules,  has  been 
the  darling  and  cherished  characteristic  of  those  concerned  in 
the  development  of  the  American  continent,  from  the  con- 
structors of  the  Union  Pacific  railroad  down  to  the  advent- 

5 


66  THE  POLITICS  OF  LABOR. 

urous  gold-seekers  who  faced  the  perils  of  the  prairies  with 
the  legend  "  Pike's  Peak  or  Bust"  inscribed  in  straggling  and 
uneven  characters  on  their  wagons.  "  Enterprise  !  "  There 
is  a  fascination  for  every  American  in  the  word.  It  tells  of 
heroic  struggles  and  sacrifices — of  the  toilsome  life  of  the  fron- 
tier settler,  determined  to  build  up  a  home  for  himself  in  the 
wilderness — of  the  hope  deferred  of  the  inventor,  racking  his 
brains  to  perfect  some  mechanical  improvement  upon  which  he 
has  spent  his  all — of  the  lofty  and  comprehensive  projects  of 
the  great  captains  of  industry,  and  of  the  ambitious  designs 
and  day-dreams  of  the  penniless  Yankee  boy,  pacing  the 
streets  of  New  York  or  Chicago  with  the  determination  to 
make  his  fortune.  In  the  social  struggle,  as  in  war,  one  bril- 
liant success  casts  into  obscurity  a  thousand  failures.  The 
career  of  the  few  who  succeed,  the  Stewarts,  and  Jay  Goulds, 
and  Erastus  Wimans,  are  blazoned  forth  as  examples  for  the 
emulation  of  young  men,  and  proofs  that  in  America  push  and 
determination  are  always  rewarded  ;  while  those  who  have 
striven  and  struggled  in  vain,  and  live  on  in  poverty,  or  fill 
unknown  graves — victims  to  enterprise — are  forgotten.  Just 
so  twenty  years  ago  the  names  of  Grant,  Sherman,  and  Sher- 
idan shone  freshly  luminous  with  the  glory  of  battle,  while 
none  but  their  immediate  circle  of  friends  knew  or  mourned 
the  privates  who  fell  in  the  conflict. 

"  Some  men  must  fill  trenches,  ten  thousand  go  down, 
As  unnamed  and  unknown  as  the  stones  in  a  wall, 
For  the  few  to  pass  over  and  on  to  renown." 

• 

If  "  peace  has  her  victories  not  less  renowned  than  war," 
she  has  also,  alas!  her  tragedies  of  defeat,  and  her  long  roll  of 
the  vanquished  and  despoiled. 

While,  as  has  been  said,  the  tendency  to  magnify  and 
esteem  enterprise  is  a  natural  result  of  the  conditions  under 
which  American  civilization  has  been  created,  we  have  now 
reached  that  stage  of  social  organization  in  which  a  much 
lower  rank  must  be  accorded  to  it.  Qualities  which  are  of 
invaluable  practical  utility  at  one  period  of  social  develop- 


THE  POLITICS  OF  LABOR.  67 

ment  may  be  largely  useless  or  positively  detrimental  to 
the  general  welfare  at  a  more  advanced  stage.  The  enterprise 
which,  during  the  formative  period,  manifested  itself  in 
pioneer  work,  which  laid  the  foundations  of  civilized  in- 
stitutions, turned  to  account  the  resources  of  nature,  and  built 
up  great  highways  of  traffic  was  a  beneficent  agency.  But 
when  thickly  settled  communities  have  grown  up,  and  industry 
and  production  are  fully  organized,  the  enterprise  which  was 
formerly  constructive  becomes  largely  competitive  and  de- 
structive. In  many  of  its  forms  it  is  positively  injurious,  and 
its  sphere  of  possible  utility  is  greatly  decreased.  But  the 
current  American  tradition  of  "go  ahead  !  "  still  survives,  and 
men  still  eulogize  enterprise  as  such  with  very  little  discri- 
mination as  to  its  objects.  It  m'ay  be  directed  towards  a 
wholly  unnecessary  and  even  ruinous  competition  with  existing 
undertakings  ;  it  may  manifest  itself  in  projects  which  derange 
the  industrial  and  commercial  machinery,  without  a  single 
compensating  advantage  to  the  public  ;  it  may  take  the  form 
of  speculation  in  grain  or  stocks,  sharp  financiering  or  land 
monopoly,  enriching  the  operator  at  the  expense  of  society. 
No  matter  how  useless  or  how  pernicious  in  its  effects,  a 
bias  in  favor  of  enterprise,  simply  as  enterprise,  cause  it  to  be 
regarded  with  a  large  measure  of  favor  and  admiration,  even 
bythose  who  suffer  from  it.  I 

(The  misdirection  ofenterprise  and  the  consequent  waste 
or  material  and  productive  force  are  owing  to  the  fact  that  the 
personal  interests  of  individuals  are  allowed  undisputed 
control  of  capital,  without  reference  to  the  needs  of  the  com- 
munity.* The  greed,  ambition,  passions,  or  caprices  of  a  very 
small  minority  are  paramount  to  the  vital  necessities  and 
highest  interests  of  the  masses,  and  the  disproportion  in 
numbers  between  the  few  who  exercise  control  and  the  many 
whose  means  of  existence  are  at  their  disposal,  is  constantly 
increasing.  The  Chicago  News,  for  instance,  in  July,  1885, 
commenting  upon  the  labor  troubles  which  then  prevailed 
in  that  city,  called  attention  to  the  vast  disparity  between 


UHI7EESIT7] 


68  THE  POLITICS  OF  LABOR. 

the  numbers  of  employers  and  employed.  Owing  to  the 
immense  accumulations  of  capital  in  few  hands  and  the  conset 
quent  centralization  of  industry  200,000  out  of  the  300,000 
wage-earners  of  that  city  were  then  employed  by  about  250 
individuals  or  corporations.  The  following  passage  is  full  of 
significance,  and  is  applicable  to  many  other  labor  centers  than 
Chicago. 

"Without  some  means  of  settling  the  difficulties  that  culminate  in 
strikes,  Chicago  will  sooner  or  later  be  called  upon  to  face  a  general 
uprising  of  a  large  portion  of  its  wage-  working  population.  Indeed  it 
was  feared  in  the  last  strike,  and  in  such  an  event  what  would  the  2^0 
employers  of  the  200,000  wage-workers  in  this  city  do  ?  The  only 
alternative  is  to  yield  or  stop 


In  this  growing  disparity  of  numbers  between  capitalists 
and  wage-workers  lies  the  hope  of  a  just  and  satisfactory 
solution  of  the  problem.  Capitalism  is  cutting  its  own  throat 
very  fast..  By  killing  off  small  competitors,  and  continually 
narrowing  the  circle  of  the  employers  of  labor  and  the 
accumulators  of  wealth,  it  weakens  immensely  its  powers  of 
resistance  to  the  popular  demand  for  justice.  The  process 
will  go  on  and  on  until  some  day  in  the  not  distant  future  the 
representatives  of  the  toiling  millions  may  quietly  walk  into 
the  offices  of  the  few  hundred  capitalists  and  say,  "Gentle- 
men, the  people  have  decided  to  dispense  with  you.  We  have 
concluded  that  you  have  engrossed  the  fruits  of  our  labor  long 
enough.  Henceforth  we  shall  conduct  the  business  ourselves, 
and  for  our  own  benefit." 

The  failure  of  the  system  under  which  capitalism  controls 
labor  for  its  personal  advantage,  and  work  and  wages  are 
regulated  by  monopoly  above  and  competition  below,  to  reg- 
ulate satisfactorily  either  production  or  distribution  is  so 
manifest  that  we  find  so  orthodox  a  political  economist  as 
Francis  A.  Walker  compelled  to  admit  it,  and  to  admit  also 
the  defects  of  political  economy,  and  its  absolute  failure  to 
point  out  any  remedy  for  existing  evils.  In  his  work  on 
"  Money,  Trade,  and  Industry  "  he  says  :  — 


T11E  POLITICS  OF  LABOR.  G9 

"  It  would  seem  that  the  most  important  of  the  questions  which  politi- 
cal economy  is  called  upon  to  answer,  is  the  question  why  the  production 
of  a  people  so  often  falls  below  and  remains  below  what  would  result 
from  the  proper  application  of  its  labor  power  and  its  capital  power  to 
the  natural  agents— land,  water-power,  mineral  resources,  etc.— of  the 
country  where  they  dwell  ?  Why  is  the  actual  at  times  so  far  short  of 
the  maximum  production  ?  Yet  there  is  no  question  with  which  politi- 
cal economists  have  so  little  concerned  themselves.  There  are  scores  of 
systematic  treatises  on  my  shelves  from  which  not  a  hint  could  be  ob- 
tained in  explanation  of  the  economical  situation  of  the  United  States  at 
the  present  moment,  and  indeed  at  any  time  during  the  past  live  years — 
an  immense  labor  power  and  capital  power  only  partially  employed, 
while  natural  resources  remain  unexhausted,  and  even  in  a  large  degree 
undeveloped,  to  which  labor  and  capital  might  be  applied  to  the  satisfac- 
tion of  human  wants.  Those  wants  remain  unsatisfied  ;  poverty  and 
suffering  result  to  hundreds  of  thousands;  straitnessof  means  and  dim- 
inution of  comfort  to  millions  more;  and  yet  there  is  no  indisposition  of 
the  capitalist  to  derive  an  income  by  allowing  the  use  of  his  money  in 
production,  and  no  reluctance  of  the  laborer  to  work.  Abounding 
natural  resources,  unemployed  labor  power,  unemployed  capital  power, 
no  lack  of  disposition  to  labor,  and  yet  an  enforced  idleness  and  result- 
ing poverty  and  squalor." 

It  would  be  difficult  to  frame  a  more  forcible  indictment  of 
the  generally  accepted  system  of  political  economy  than  this 
candid  admission  by  an  advocate  of  its  cherished  principles. 
If  Mr.  Walker's  statement  be  true,  that  it  has  no  explanation 
to  offer  of  the  present  industrial  evils,  and  no  remedy  to 
suggest,  what  claims  have  its  teachings  upon  the  intelligent 
opinions  of  those  who  are  brought  face-to-face  with  the 
practical  aspects  of  this  problem,  which  the  writer  sets  before 
us  so  clearly  ?  How  can  men  who  feel  bitterly  the  effects  of 
the  conditions  he  has  thus  graphically  depicted,  be  expected 
to  rest  satisfied  with  the  empty  platitudes  and  time-honored 
traditions  which  have  wholly  failed  to  meet  the  living  actual 
issues  of  the  present?  How  can  a  system  which  reiterates 
with  little  modification  the  ideas  and  principles  which  were 
considered  applicable  to  the  condition  of  society  before  the 
railroad  and  the  telegraph  were  in  operation,  before  the  era 
of  mechanical  invention  and  manufacturing  expansion  set  in, 
help  us  in  the  solution  of  an  entirely  new  and  complicated  set 


70  THE  POLITICS  OF  LABOR. 

of  questions,  the  very  possibility  of  which  was  not  dreamed  of 
when  its  theories  were  formulated?  As  well  might  the  modern 
general,  in  these  days  of  Winchester  rifles,  Armstrong  guns, 
and  iron-clad  vessels,  base  his  plan  of  campaign  on  the  tactics 
of  Frederick  the  Great  or  Turenne.  It  is  idle  to  talk  of  the 
wisdom  of  our  ancestors,  or  the  respect  due  to  principles 
which  have  so  long  been  accepted  by  mankind.  When  all 
the  conditions  have  altered,  the  longer  that  any  system  has 
been  in  vogue  the  less  likely  it  is  to  be  suitable  to  the  pre- 
v-ailing  requirements. 

1  Of  late  the  public  mind,  or  perhaps  rather  the  public  con- 
science, has  acquired  some  vague  perception  of  the  truth  of 
the  new  political  economy.  If  has  become  the  fashion  to 
speak  of  wealth  as  a  "  trust."  The  millionaire  is  held  morally 
responsible  for  the  use  to  which  he  puts  his  superfluous  riches. 
If  a  rich  man  dies  without  leaving  a  considerable  percentage 
of  his  money  to  religious,  philanthropic,  or  public  purposes, 
the  fact  is  commented  on  by  the  press  often  in  severe  terms, 
as  though  he  had  in  a  sense  defrauded  the  community  by 
withholding  what  they  had  a  right  to  expect.  Now  all  this  is 
entirely  at  variance  with  the  recognized  principles  of  political 
economy,  that  whatever  wealth  a  man  can  accumulate  by 
legal  means  is  indisputably  his  to  use  as  he  pleases,  to  hoard 
or  squander,  to  give  or  bequeath  as  he  sees  fit,  without  any 
one  having  the  right  to  call  him  to  account.  This  Instinctive 
sense,  that,  after  all,  the  community  has  a  claim  upon  the  accu- 
mulations of  wealth,  utterly  illogical  though  it  is  in  its  mani- 
festations, is  significant  of  a  widespread  though  undefined 
revulsion  from  the  formally  accepted  theories  as  to  property 
ri,<jhts.\  Newspapers  which  would  repel  indignantly  the 
charge^f  "  Socialism,"  and  are  ordinarily  firm  sticklers  for  the 
rights  of  capital,  will  nevertheless  write  of  the  responsibilities 
of  wealth,  and  if  a  prominent  millionaire  dies  without  making 
the  customary  benefactions  to  churches,  colleges,  asylums,  or 
hospitals,  will  refer  to  the  matter  in  a  tone  which  intimates 
that  in  their  opinion  the  omission  indicates  a  grave  short- 
coming in  the  character  of  the  late  lamented.  There  is 


THE  POLITICS  OF  LAKOE.  71 

room  for  clear  thinking  on  this  phase  of  modern  sentiment. 
If  wealth  is  indeed  a  "  trust,"  its  possessor  cannot  have  an 
absolute  individual  right  to  it.  On  the  other  hand,  if  he  has 
such  a  right  to  it,  it  cannot  be  a  trust.  And  if  it  is  a  trust,  it 
is  surely  logical  to  say  that  society  ought  to  have  the  power — 
seeing  that  it  must  clearly  have  the  right — of  seeing  that  the 
trust  is  not  abused.  If  a  wealthy  man  be  really  responsible — 
as  a  large  class  of  journalists,  ministers,  and  lecturers  of 
unquestioned  economic  soundness  say  that  he  is — for  the  use 
that  he  makes  of  his  means,  should  the  enforcement  of  this 
responsibility  be  left  altogether  to  public  opinion  ?  If  he  is 
not  responsible,  there  is  an  end  of  the  matter.  But  if  he  is, 
why  is  he  left  free  to  deny  or  ignore  this  responsibility,  and 
to  assert  his  privilege  to  "  do  as  he  likes  with  his  own  ?  " 

The  fact  is,  that  the  intuitive  sense  of  justice  of  the  masses 
has  reached  a  conclusion  that  is  entirely  at  variance  with 
their  theoretical  opinions.  They  feel  the  wrong  and  the  in- 
justice of  unlimited  personal  aggrandizement,  by  the  operation 
of  the  system  of  monopoly  and  competition,  though  they 
may  not  be  able  to  reason  it  out  clearly ;  and  they  assert  an 
indefinite,  shadowy  sort  of  claim  on  behalf  of  society  upon 
large  accumulations,  which  they  would  be  puzzled  to  justify 
on-the  principles  that  they  profess  to  accept. 
i  The  "  trust "  idea  so  frequently  emphasized  of  late  is  im- 
portant merely  as  showing  the  tendency  of  men's  thoughts  in 
relation  to  the  intrinsic  injustice  of  methods,  under  which 
individuals  are  able  to  heap  up  wealth  in  amounts  which 
bear  no  ascertainable  relation  to  the  actual  value  of  the  ser- 
vices they  render  to  society.)  It  contains  the  germ  which, 
expanded  and  systematized,  will  revolutionize  the  relations  be- 
tween labor  and  capital,  and  instead  of  keeping  the  worker 
hopelessly  dependent  upon  those  who  control  the  means  and 
opportunities  of  production,  will  restore  to  each  the  right  to 
the  full  earnings  of  his  labor  under  the  new  political  economy. 


72  THE  POLITICS  OF  LAB  OH. 

CHAPTER  IV. 

REVOLUTION  OE  EVOLUTION" 

Courage!  my  brother  or  my  sister! 

Keep  on !    Liberty  is  to  be  subserved  whatever  occurs. 

That  is  nothing  that  is  quelled  by  one  or  two  failures  or  any  number  of 
failures, 

Or  by  the  indifferences  or  ingratitude  of  the  people  or  by  any  unfaith- 
fulness, 

Or  the  show  of  the  tushes  of  power,  soldiers,  cannon,  penal  statutes. 

What  we  believe  in  waits,  latent  forever  through  all  the  continents,  and 
all  the  islands  and  archipelagoes  of  the  sea. 

What  we  believe  in  invites  no  one,  promises  nothing,  sits  in  calmness 
and  light,  is  positive  and  composed,  knbws  no  discouragement. 

Waiting  patiently,  waiting  its  time. 

WALT  WHITMAN. 

THE  great  majority  of  wage-workers  and  a  good  many 
others  are  so  fully  sensible  of  the  injustice  of  the  system  of 
capitalism,  that  arguments  to  prove  what  daily  impresses  it- 
self upon  them  by  bitter  experience  may  be  regarded  as 
superfluous.  They  know  already  that  they  do  not  get  the 
value  of  the  products  of  their  labor,  and  that  the  reason  is 
because  those  who  have  monopolized  the  means  of  produc- 
tion absorb,  as  profit,  rent,  and  usury,  a  vast  amount  in  excess 
of  anything  to  which  they  are  legitimately  entitled  as  remun- 
eration for  brain  labor.  They  see,  moreover,  that  private  con- 
trol of  capital  results  in  waste  and  loss,  owing  to  the  under- 
taking f  enterprises  which  are  not  required  in  the  public  in- 
terest— which  waste  and  loss  ultimately  fall  on  the  producing 
class.  But  though  there  is  a  widespread  conviction  of  the 
wrong,  there  is  no  adequate  general  perception  of  the  remedy  ; 
and  still  less  is  there  a  determination  to  forego  all  other  pub- 
lic objects  in  order  to  secure  it. 

fUespite  the  wonderful  advances  made  of  late  in  the  direc- 
tion of  labor  organization,  and  a  better  understanding  of  the 
conditions  of  the  problem,  numbers  of  wage-workers  are 
still  apathetic  or  hopeless  of  any  permanent  betterment 


THE  POLITICS  OF  LABOE.  73 

of  their  lot.  Many  are  thoughtless  and  indifferent  so 
long  as  their  immediate  position  is  not  absolutely  insupport- 
able. Others  are  under  the  spell  of  the  fatalism  of  political 
economy,  which  teaches  that  periods  of  industrial  stagnation 
and  distress  are  natural  and  inevitable.  More  are  influenced 
by  a  perverted  Christianity,  which  disparages  sublunary  mat- 
ters as  of  little  moment,  and  blasphemously  regards  the  con- 
sequences of  human  greed  and  oppression  as  Heaven-sent 
afflictions  which  must  be  borne  in  patience,  holding  out  the 
prospect  of  a  "home  beyond  the  skies  "as  an  incentive  to 
contentment  under  unjust  conditions  here.  A  considerable 
proportion  are  disposed  to  regard  the  existing  system  with 
some  measure  of  favor,  because,  under  the  influence  of  the 
"  self-made  man  "  tradition,  they  hope,  by  superior  industry, 
thrift,  and  enterprise,  some  day  or  other  to  escape  from  the 
ranks  of  labor  and  become  wealthy  themselves.  And  many 
who  are  keenly  alive  to  labor's  disabilities  have  not  yet  prog- 
ressed beyond  the  idea  of  trade-unionism,  and  regard  the 
question  as  simply  a  difference  between  the  laborer  and  his 
immediate  employer  respecting  wages  or  hours.  ^ 

Among  those  who  realize  the  necessity  for  organic  change, 
and  are  willing  to  work  to  secure  it,  the  greatest  difference  of 
opinion  prevails  both  as  to  aims  and  methods.  While  the 
final  results  sought  to  be  attained  are  more  or  less  socialistic 
in  their  character,  the  means  of  operation  may  be  broadly 
classified  as  revolutionary  and  evolutionary. 

Hitherto  I  have  as  far  as  possible  avoided  the  use  of  the 
term  "  Socialism,"  not  from  fear  of  arousing  vulgar  prejudice, 
but  to  avoid  confusion  of  thought  and  misunderstanding. 
Socialism,  as  the  word  is  popularly  used,  may  convey  so  many 
different  meanings,  that  unless  the  sense  in  which  it  is  em- 
ployed is  thoroughly  defined,  it  is  liable  to  lead  to  misconcep- 
tion. As  loosely  made  use  of  by  the  ignorant— though  possibly 
college-bred — writers  for  the  capitalistic  press,  it  implies  a 
suggestion  of  violence.  In  its  scientific  sense  it  connotes  a 
systematized  completeness  as  to  the  details,  which  does  not 
enter  into  the  schemes  of  many  who  are  more  or  less  Social- 


74  THE  POLITICS  OF  LABOR. 

istic  in  their  aims.  But  to  label  as  "  Socialism  "  any  move- 
ment or  plan  which  has  for  its  ultimate  object  the  substitution 
for  wage-servitude  and  competition,  of  a  system  under  which 
the  community  shall  regulate  production  and  distirbution, 
tends  to  preclude  consideration  on  its  own  merits,  and  to 
imply  more  than  is  intended.  In  particular,  it  is  calculated, 
owing  to  the  systematic  perversion  of  the  term  by  capitalis- 
tic writers,  to  convey  to  superficial  minds  the  notion  of  rev- 
olutionary violence.  Socialism,  in  the  legitimate  sense  of 
the  word,  relates  solely  to  the  system,  and  has  not  the  slightest 
reference  to  the  means  employed  for  bringing  it  about.  It 
no  more  implies  insurrection  than  does  "  Democracy" — a  word 
to  which,  in  continental  Europe,  much  the  same  sinister 
significance  has  been  attached.  Most  of  the  avowed  anar- 
chists are  not  Socialists  in  the  sense  of  having  any  definite 
ideas  as  to  the  future  organization  of  Society.  And  many, 
perhaps  most,  Socialists  are  not  revolutionists.  They  look  to 
the  power  of  the  ballot  to  accomplish  their  objects,  rightly 
arguing  that  if  men  will  not  combine  for  peaceful  political 
agitation,  it  is  folly  to  imagine  that  they  could  be  induced  to 
resort  to  the  desperate  measure  of  armed  revolt  in  sufficient 
numbers  to  make  success  possible. 

Of  late  years  the  air  has  been  full  of  the  mutterings  of  ap- 
proaching disturbance.  Associations  and  publications  openly 
revolutionary  in  their  object  have  been  established.  Again 
and  again  has  the  long-smouldering  discontent  of  the  rest- 
less, hungry,  dissatisfied  element,  the  "proletariat"  of  the 
great  cities,  flamed  up  in  incipient  revolt,  as  in  the  memorable 
Pittsburg  riots  of  1877,  the  Cincinnati  outbreak  i:i  1884,  and 
the  Milwaukee  and  Chicago  riots  of  the  spring  of  1886.  The 
growth,  owing  to  the  operation  of  the  system  of  capitalistic  ex- 
ploitation, of  this  outcast  class — the  under  dogs  of  the  world's 
fight,  the  wrecks  and  failures  of  humanity,  the  "  unfittest  "  who 
do  not  "  survive,"  the  weakest  who  go  to  the  wall  in  the  strug- 
gle, who  fear  no  future  in  this  or  any  other  world,  who  have 
neither  hope  nor  energy  nor  ambition  left — is  at  once  one  of 
the  saddest  results  of  the  existing  system,  and  the  sure  pre- 


THE  POLITICS  OF  LABOLi.  75 

sage  of  its  overthrow.  Like  Frankenstein  in  the  story, 
Capitalism  has  created  a  monster  which  threatens  to  destroy 
the  classes,  if  not  the  system,  that  gave  it  life. 

The  number  of  men  and  women  who  cannot  get  work  on 
any  tsrrns  implies  a  far  larger  class  whose  pay  has  become  : 
mere  pittance  by  reason  of  competition.  The  ranks  of  vice, 
idleness,  and  criminality  are  continually  swollen  by  those  who, 
under  juster  conditions,  would  have  remained  useful  members 
of  society.  If  there  is  one  lesson  that  is  clearly  deducible 
from  the  history  of  all  countries  and  ages,  it  is  the  absolute 
certainty  of  retribution  for  every  form  of  injustice  and 
oppression.  America  has  already  had  one  terrible  experience 
of  the  slow  but  sure  Nemesis  which  overtakes  national  wrong- 
doing, in  the  suffering  and  loss  entailed  by  the  war  for  the 
preservation  of  the  union  and  the  suppression  of  slavery.  The 
record  of  the  proudest  empires  of  the  past  shows  the  inexor- 
able working  of  this  law  of  retribution  for  wrongs  perpetrated 
and  sanctioned  by  law  and  public  opinion.  In  Draper's 
"Intellectual  Development  of  Europe"  the  causes  which 
wrought  the  decay  of  the  powerful  and  splendid  Roman  Em- 
pire are  thus  summarized. 

"  Labor  was  despised ;  hence  the  downfall  of  the  Roman  Empire.  The 
treatment  of  the  laborers  was  atrocious.  On  the  murder  of  one  Penda- 
nius,  four  hundred  slaves  were  put  to  death,  when  it  was  obvious  to 
every  one  that  scarcely  any  of  them  had  known  of  the  crime.  To  such 
a  degree  had  this  system  been  developed  that  slave  labor  was  cheaper 
than  animal  labor,  and  work  formerly  done  by  cattle  was  done  by  men. 
The  class  which  should  have  constituted  the  chief  strength  of  the  coun- 
try disappeared,  labor  becoming  so  ignoble  that  the  poor  citizen  would 
not  become  an  artizan,  but  became  a  pauper.  The  concentration  of  power 
and  the  increase  of  immorality  proceeded  with  equal  step.  Crimes  were 
committed  such  as  the  world  had  never  before  witnessed.  An  evil  day  is 
approaching  when  it,  becomes  recognized  in  a  community  that  the  only 
standard  of  social  distinction  is  wealth.  That  day  in  Rome  was  soon 
followed  by  corruption  and  terrorism.  No  language  can  describe  its 
state  after  the  civil  wars.  The  accumulation  of  power  and  wealth  gave 
rise  to  untold  depravity  among  the  aristocracy.  A  citizen  had  to  de- 
posit a  bribe  before  a  trial  at  law  could  be  had.  The  social  body  was  a 
festering  mass  of  rottenness.  The  aristocracy  was  demoniac.  The  city 


76  THE  POLITICS  OF  LABOR. 

was  a  hell  to  the  laborer.  No  villainy  that  the  annals  of  human  wick- 
edness can  show  was  left  unperpetrated.  Remorseless  murders,  the  be- 
trayal of  parents,  husbands,  wives,  friends,  were  reduced  to  a  system 
which  degenerated  into  crimes  that  cannot  be  written.  " 

And  so  fell  the  power  that  for  centuries  made  the  world 
tremble,  and  exercised  a  wider  supremacy  than  any  nation  of 
ancient  times.  The  systematic  oppression  of  the  laborer 
sapped  its  manhood,  destroyed  its  strength,  rotted  the  mag- 
nificent structure  at  its  foundation,  and  left  it  an  easy  prey  to 
the  barbarian  hordes.  The  description  of  the  causes  of 
Rome's  overthrow  presents  such  a  startling  parallel  to  the 
causes  now  at  work  in  every  modern  land  that  it  reads  like  a 
slightly  overdrawn  presentation  of  the  evils  of  American  or 
European  society  to-day.  Is  history  repeating  itself  ?  Are 
the  great  Empire  and  the  great  Republic  travelling  over  the 
same  broad  road  that  led  old  Rome  to  the  abyss  ? 

"  111  fares  the  land,  to  hastening  ills  a  prey, 
Where  wealth  accumulates  and  men  decay," 

wrote  the  poet ;  mourning  over  the  extinction  of  a  once  com- 
fortable and  happy  peasantry  at  the  will  of  the  self-styled 
''owner"  of  the  soil.  Look  where  we  may,  the  same  sinister 
phenomenon  presents  itself — the  accumulation  of  wealth  and 
the  decay  of  manhood.  Horrible  crimes  abound — each  day's 
despatches  tell  the  story.  As  in  the  days  of  Roman  deca- 
dence, "the  concentration  of  power  and  the  increase  of  im- 
morality proceed  with  equal  step."  Look  at  the  great  mono- 
polies— the  trans-continental  railroad  lines — the  coal  com- 
panies—the manufacturing  combinations — the  telegraph  cor- 
porations— the  land-grabbing  rings  and  the  landlords  who 
own  block  upon  block  of  property  in  the  heart  of  our  great 
cities — the  capitalists,  who  by  a  stroke  of  the  pen  can  raise 
the  price  of  the  necessaries  of  life.  Never  since  the  days  to 
which  the  foregoing  extract  refers  did  a  very  few  men  hold 
in  their  hands  such  extensive  powers  over  their  fellows,  or  use 
them  more  remorselessly.  The  claims  of  manhood  are  dis- 
regarded ;  only  those  of  the  moneyed  interests  are  recognized 


THE  POLITICS  OF  LABOE.  7£ 

by  the  lawgivers,  who  are  as  much  owned  by  the  monopoliz- 
ing class  as  though  they  had  been  purchased  in  open 
market.  The  whole  advantage  of  the  great  inventions  de- 
signed to  improve  the  condition  of  mankind  has  gone  to  the 
exploiting  classes.  If  experience  can  be  depended  upon  as  a 
guide — if  there  is  any  meaning  in  the  warnings  of  history — 
these  wrongs  must  bring  retribution  in  their  train.  Unless  a 
thorough  reconstruction  of  the  industrial  system  arrests  the 
tendency  to  demoralization  by  ensuring  healthier  conditions 
for  the  development  of  a  higher  standard  of  manhood  and 
womanhood,  the  same  enfeeblement  and  degradation  of  the 
race  which  proved  the  ruin  of  the  ancient  civilizations  based 
upon  slavery  and  caste  supremacy  will  assuredly  sap  the  sys- 
tem reared  by  capitalism  upon  a  like  foundation  of  industrial 
serfdom. 

The  revolutionary  spirit  is  abroad.  Wherever  the  pressure 
is  greatest  and  the  depressing  effects  of  the  social  struggle 
most  keenly  felt,  there  are  spasmodic  outbreaks  or  menacing 
demonstrations — the  instinctive  turning  of  the  crushed  worm 
rather  than  the  deliberate  purpose  of  those  having  in  view  a 
definite  end.  In  a  large  proportion  of  the  now  chronic  labor 
troubles  in  the  large  centres  a  disposition  towards  physical 
violence  has  been  displayed.  When  the  desperation  of  wage- 
workers  who  see  their  condition  growing  more  intolerable 
takes  the  form  of  assaults  on  those  who,  like  themselves,  are 
the  victims  of  capitalism,  and  have  no  choice  between  accept- 
ing the  terms  offered  them  and  slow  starvation — when  union- 
ists, in  their  blind  and  unreasoning  rage,  turn  against  non- 
unionists,  or  Chinamen,  or  foreign  workmen,  and  kill  or  as- 
rnult  them,  their  acts  admit  of  no  justification  whatever,  of 
no  palliation  even,  except  the  perpetrators  have  been  brutal- 
iztfd  and  degraded  by  oppression. 

But  outside  of  this  form  of  physical  outbreak,  forcible  resist- 
::jjce  to  the  tyranny  of  employers,  or  acts  committed  in  retal- 
iation as  a  deterrent,  cannot  be  consistently  condemned 
except  by  those  who  are  non-resistants  on  principle.  Those 
T/ho  hold  the  Quaker  doctrine,  and  believe,  theoretically 


78  THE  POLITICS  OF  LA13OR. 

at  least,  in  turning  the  left  cheek  when  the  right  is  smit- 
ten, in  enduring  wrong  meekly  and  uncomplainingly,  and 
in  returning  good  for  evil,  may  logically  denounce  striking  or 
locked-out  workmen  in  resorting  to  violence.  But  they  are 
the  only  ones  who  can.  Among  the  great  mass  of  mankind 
another  principle  prevails.  Non-resistance  is  voted  an  im- 
practicable if  not  a  cowardly  doctrine — one  which  would  give 
this  world  over  to  anarchy,  tyranny,  and  brutal  oppression. 
The  maxim  that  "  resistance  to  tyrants  is  obedience  to  God  " 
is  inculcated  as  embodying  a  noble  rule  of  action  and  justifying 
the  course  of  Washington,  Tell,  Hofer,  Garibaldi,  Toussaint 
L'Ouverture,  and  other  revolutionary  patriots  whose  names  are 
held  in  high  honor.  Rebellions  against  nets  of  oppression  infi- 
nitely less  mischievous  in  their  crushing  and  degrading  effects 
than  the  cold-blooded  and  systematic  pauperization  of  Amer- 
ican labor  have  been  lauded  to  the  skies  as  just  and  righteous. 
Because  England  put  a  paltry  tax  of  a  few  cents  a  pound 
upon  tea,  which  did  not  materially  interfere  with  the  comfort 
and  well-being  of  the  American  people,  a  Boston  mob 
seized  the  cargoes  of  that  commodity  in  the  vessels  lying  in 
their  harbor  and  threw  them  overboard.  The  act  is  regarded 
by  every  American  as  the  outcome  of  a  noble  and  patriotic 
determination  to  resist  a  tyrannical  imposition.  Now  what 
is  the  difference  in  principle  between  the  doings  of  the  historic 
"  Boston  tea  party  "  and  the  destruction  of  property  in  the 
mines  of  Ohio  or  on  the  railroads  of  Missouri  by  men  ground 
down  to  the  last  stages  of  endurance  by  the  inexorable  and 
pitiless  hand  of  monopoly  ?  Why  is  the  one  to  be  honored 
and  the  other  condemned  ?  It  is  asserted  that  historical  research 
has  proved  William  Tell  to  be  a  myth.  Be  that  as  it  may, 
his  character,  whether  real  or  fictitious,  has  long  been  held  in 
high  esteem  for  his  successful  resistance  to  the  tyrant  Gessler. 
He  refused  to  bow  to  the  despot's  cap  elevated  to  receive  the 
homage  of  the  people,  and  the  struggle  that  followed  ended  by 
his  sending  an  arrow  through  the  oppressor's  heart  and  restoring 
his  country's  liberties.  That  was  magnanimous  and  noble  and 
heroic  in  the  estimation  of  the  very  people  who  will  in  the 


THE  POLITICS  OF  LABOR.  79 

next  breath  condemn  the  people's  war  on  monopoly  as  the 
act  of  wretches  who  ought  to  be  sent  to  the  gallows.  And 
yet  what  a  light  and  trifling  thing  is  the  exaction  of  a  motion 
of  external  homage  as  compared  with  the  actual  depriva- 
tion of  the  means  of  subsistence  and  the  slow  process  of 
moral  and  physical  degradation  which  the  tyrants  of  mono- 
poly have  decreed  ?  If — apart  altogether  from  considerations 
of  expediency — revolutionary  courses  on  the  part  of  oppressed 
wage-workers  are  morally  wrong,  then  clearly  a  great  many 
parallel  actions,  which  the  general  consensus  of  opinion  has 
hitherto  held  to  be  justifiable  and  even  admirable  and  heroic, 
were  also  wrong.  If  resistance  to  oppression  is  to  be  held 
right,  it  simply  becomes  a  question  of  degree — a  question  of 
how  long  and  how  much  poor  humanity  is  to  be  expected  to 
endure  before  it  seeks  to  retaliate. 

While,  according  to  the  principles  acted  upon  by  the  found- 
ers of  the  republic,  an  uprising  of  the  working-classes  to 
recover  their  rights  by  force  would  be  fully  justified,  it  is 
well  that  the  sound,  practical  common-sense  and  right  feeling 
of  the  great  majority  are  decidedly  against  violence,  except  as 
a  last  resort.  Considerations  of  humanity  and  expediency 
alike  point  to  the  employment  of  every  other  means  before 
resorting  to  the  dread  alternative  of  insurrection.  The  horrors 
of  a  civil  war  between  sections  would  be  far  outdone  by  the 
hideous  program  of  the  anarchists,  were  it  by  any  possibility 
realized.  Then  war  would  be  brought  home  to  every  man's 
door,  and  the  most  sanguine  could  hardly  expect  that  in  the 
end  the  lot  of  labor  would  be  materially  bettered.  Every 
condition  of  success  in  such  a  contest  is  wanting,  and  stern 
repression  and  bloodthirsty  vengeance,  such  as  that  which 
characterized  the  fall  of  the  Paris  Commune,  would  be  inflicted 
by  the  infuriated  victors.  The  worst  possible  result  would 
be  the  achievement  of  a  temporary  success  by  men  whose 
sole  aim  was  the  destruction  of  existing  institutions  without 
any  definite  or  well-arranged  plan,  perhaps  without  any  plan 
at  all,  for  their  replacement.  Every  thoughtful  Labor  Reformer 
realizes  that,  cruel  as  are  the  wrongs  perpetrated  under  the 


80  THE  POLITICS  OF  LABOR. 

present  social  organization,  the  hardships  and  miseries 
entailed  by  a  sudden  stoppage  of  its  machinery  would  be 
infinitely  greater. 

The  abuses  of  capitalism  are  so  hateful  and  its  rule  is  so  des- 
potic— often  so  devilish  in  some  of  its  aspects — that  we  are  in 
danger  of  forgetting  the  old  adage,  "  give  the  devil  his  due." 
We  fail  to  remember  that,  black  as  the  record  of  capitalism  is, 
and  bitter  as  are  the  wrongs  that  men  bear  at  its  hands — yet 
nevertheless,  in  the  present  stage  of  the  world's  development, 
it  serves  a  useful  purpose.  It  was  not  created.  It  did  not 
spring  into  existence  armed  with  all  the  powers  which  it  has 
so  badly  misused,  but  was  evolved  gradually  with  the  growth 
of  society  to  fill  a  function  which  no  other  power  was  then  or 
is  yet  capable  of  filling.  Now,  in  the  complicated  network  of 
an  advanced  civilization,  the  work  of  organization,  superin- 
tendence, and  direction  must  be  done  by  somebody,  or  chaos 
will  come  again.  Just  think  of  the  fate  of  a  great  city  like 
New  York  or  Chicago,  or  even  of  a  small  town,  if  the  wheels 
of  the  great  machine  of  commerce  and  transportation  were 
suddenly  to  stop — if,  owing  to  want  of  organizing  capacity 
and  executive  action,  the  supplies  of  wheat,  cattle,  and  coal 
on  which  the  people  are  dependent  for  existence  were 
no  longer  forwarded — if  the  water-works  and  gas  depart- 
ments were  allowred  to  run  themselves — if  all  the  systems 
of  transit  and  communication,  such  as  the  railroads, 
the  telegraphs,  the  express  companies,  the  great  manufactur- 
ing and  wholesale  enterprises,  were  brought  to  a  standstill  by 
reason  of  the  forcible  and  sudden  removal  of  the  monopolists 
and  middlemen  by  whom  they  are  conducted.  It  would  sim- 
ply mean  starvation  to  thousands  and  inconceivable  hardship 
and  inconvenience  to  the  survivors  before  society  could  re- 
adjust itself.  Yes,  capitalism  does,  after  its  fashion,  bung- 
lingly  and  badly,  and  with  harshness  and  injustice  enough, 
God  knows,  the  needed  work  of  superintendence  and  direction 
— but  after  all  it  does  it.  The  monopolist  and  the  middle- 
man must  be  got  rid  of — utterly  abolished  at  the  earliest 
opportunity.  But  to  do  this  without  entailing  far  greater 


THE  POLITICS  OF  LABOR.  81 

evils  than  even  their  exactions  inflict,  some  means  must  be 
found  of  filling  their  places  and  doing  their  work  of  organ- 
izing, production,  and  distribution.  Are  the  world's  toilers  at 
present  fit  to  undertake  this  essential  task  ?  The  experience 
of  the  numerous  attempts  at  productive  co-operation  unfor- 
tunately points  in  the  other  direction.  Before  any  hope  of 
such  a  change  in  the  social  organization  as  will  substitute 
universal  co-operation  for  the  wage  system  can  be  reasonably 
entertained,  workingmen  must  have  cultivated  successfully 
the  business  faculty — the  power  of  close  calculation,  of  accu- 
rate, shrewd,  and  conscientious  management  of  public  affairs, 
and  learned  in  larger  measure  than  at  present  the  need  of 
mutual  confidence  and  the  value  of  combination  and  united 
action. 

In  evolution,  not  in  revolution,  lies  the  solution  of  the  prob- 
lem. No  sudden  spasmodic  change,  even  could  it  be  accom- 
plished peaceably,  could  possibly  bring  those  aptitudes  for  the 
fulfilment  of  the  duties  and  responsibilities  of  a  more  perfect 
social  state  which  alone  could  save  the  community  from  a 
worse  fate  than  the  rule  of  the  moneyed  interest.  Our  posi- 
tion may  be  compared  to  that  of  prisoners  in  the  hold  of  a 
pirate  vessel,  robbed,  half-starved,  and  condemned  to  drudg- 
ery. It  is  possible  that  by  a  concerted  movement  we  might 
kill  or  master  the  pirates  ;  but  wre  are  ignorant  of  navigation, 
and  should  we  attempt  to  work  the  vessel,  would  be  in  immi- 
nent peril  of  shipwreck.  The  pirates,  though  severe  task- 
masters, at  least  keep  us  afloat. 

yrower  and  ignorance  do  not  go  well  together.  The  world 
,rs  not  ripe  for  a  social  revolution.  Were  such  a  general  up- 
heaval as  would  utterly  prostrate  the  power  of  monopoly  and 
put  capital  under  our  feet  to  come  now,  it  would  come  too 
soon,  because  it  would  find  the  masses  unprepared.  Suppose 
that,  in  the  present  condition  of  public  opinion,  the  wage- 
workers  throughout  this  continent  rose  as  one  man,  overcame 
the  police,  the  military,  and  the  Pinkerton  mercenaries,  hung 
every  monopolist  upon  whom  they  could  lay  their  hands  to 
the  nearest  tree  or  lamp-post,  sent  their  palaces  up  in  smoke, 


82  THE  POLITICS  OF  LABOR. 

aad  confiscated  their  stolen  goods  to  the  public  use,  what,  so 
far  as  the  condition  of  labor  is  concerned,  would  be  the  result  ? 
Why  simply  that  in  a  few  years  later  all  the  evils  and  abuses 
which  had  provoked  the  outbreak  would  again  be  in  full  blast. 
We  should  have  a  new  set  of  millionaires  and  monopolists 
created  out  of  the  dominant  working-class  by  the  operation 
of  the  same  conditions  and  influences  which  have  developed 
the  present  taskmasters,  and  the  masses  would  be  no  better 
off  than  before.  The  people  are  not  yet  sufficiently  educated 
to  change  the  conditions  and  overthrow  the  system  which 
breeds  monopolists.  If  the  monopolists,  as  a  class,  are  worse 
men  than  their  victims,  it  is  the  fault  of  a  system  under  which 
the  baser  qualities  of  human  nature  conduce  to  prosperity — 
while  the  nobler  traits  of  humanity  are  often  obstacles  to  suc- 
cess in  life.  The  individuals  who  have  climbed  to  the  pin- 
nacle of  fortune  over  the  heads  of  their  fellows,  careless  of 
whom  they  crushed  bleeding  to  earth,  may  deserve  all  that  a 
bloody  revolution  would  bring  upon  them.  But  their  fate 
would  not  of  itself  alter  the  conditions,  and  other  greedy  and 
unscrupulous  men  would  soon  step  on  over  prostrate  human- 
ity into  their  places. 

With  too  many  working-men  the  millionaire  is  an  object  of 
envy.  The  only  reason  they  have  for  hating  the  system  is 
because  they  do  not  happen  to  have  drawn  prizes  in  the  lot- 
tery of  life.  They  desire  nothing  so  much  as  to  become  mono- 
polists themselves.  "  I  only  wish  I  were  as  rich  as  Jay 
Gould  ; "  "  Ah  !  if  somebody  would  die  now  and  leave  me  a 
million  dollars,"  and  similar  expressions  which  we  hear  every 
day  from  men  who  profess  to  be  in  favor  of  Labor  Reform, 
show  how  deeply  the  virus  of  Mammon -worship  has  tainted 
society.  So  long  as  the  great  bulk  of  the  people  wish  and 
long  to  be  privileged  loafers ;  so  long  as  envy  of  the  fortunate 
millionaire,  rather  than  hatred  of  the  infernal  system  which 
enables  him  to  become  such,  inspires  the  masses,  we  cannot 
hope  for  any  material  gain  either  by  a  forcible  or  a  peaceful 
revolution. 

men  are  not  individually  to  blame  for  wishing  that 


THE  POLITICS  OF  LABOR.  83 

they  were  in  Jay  Gould's  shoes.  It  is  the  fault  of  wrong 
education — not  school  education  merely,  but  the  teaching  of 
the  press  and  the  platform  and  the  whole  circle  of  influences 
which  contribute  to  the  formation  of  opinion.  The  acquisi- 
tion of  wealth  and  position  at  the  expense  of  others  has  been 
held  up  before  us  all  from  boyhood  as  a  perfectly  natural  and 
laudable  ambition.  There  is  all  the  more  need  therefore  for 
true  teachings  on  the  subject,  to  counteract  the  false  educa- 
tion which  sets  up  the  millionaire  as  a  man  to  be  admired  and 
envied.  We  have  to  create  a  revolution  in  public  opinion 
before  we  can  hope  to  revolutionize  the  system.  We  have  to 
change  not  only  men's  formally  expressed  beliefs,  but  their 
aspirations  and  desires — to  eradicate  the  deep-rooted  selfish" 
ness  begotten  of  competition,  and  to  instil  in  its  place  a  love 
for  humanity  and  a  strong  sense  of  justice.  It  is  an  education 
of  the  heart  as  much  as  of  the  head  that  is  needed.  Not  until 
this  work,  now  just  begun,  is  accomplished  can  the  old  order 
of  things  give  place  to  the  new./ 

Bearing  in  mind  the  great  truth  that  all  human  institutions, 
including  government  in  all  its  forms  and  phases,  and  the  entire 
industrial  system,  are  the  product  of  evolution  ;  that  they  have 
not  been  imposed  upon  mankind,  but  have  slowly  developed 
in  accordance  with  the  necessities  of  the  case,  we  must  look  to 
the  same  process  of  gradual  change  for  the  improvement  of 
present  conditions.  The  acceptance  of  the  evolution  theory 
as  applied  to  the  growth  of  human  society  does  not,  as  some 
have  argued,  imply  a  passive  acquiescence  in  abuses  in  the 
spirit  of  fatalism.  Evolution  is  not  a  blind,  inexorable  force. 
The  direction  of  its  working  is  capable  of  being  changed  by  a 
change  in  conditions ;  and  potent  among  these  are  the  opinions 
and  actions  of  the  social  units,  still  more  those  of  large  com- 
binations. "  In  a  society,"  says  Herbert  Spencer,  "  living, 
growing,  changing,  every  new  factor  becomes  a  permanent 
force,  modifying  more  or  less  the  direction  of  movement  de. 
termined  by  the  aggregate  of  forces."  Such  a  new  factor  in 
the  transition  stage  upon  which  we  have  entered  is  educated 
and  organized  labor.  As  in  the  physical  sphere  the  growth 


84  THE  POLITICS  OF  LABOR. 

.of  an  organism  is  modified  by  its  surroundings,  so  in  the  de. 
velopment  of  social  institutions  the  influence  of  law,  of  public 
opinion,  and  of  organized  effort  tends  continually  towards  a 
change  of  structure,  and  makes  a  lasting  impress  upon  the 
character  of  the  community,  far  more  important  and  far- 
reaching  in  its  effects  than  the  immediate  result.  A  principle 
once  admitted,  a  precedent  once  firmly  established,  a  step  once 
taken  at  the  parting  of  the  ways,  trivial  apparently  by  itself, 
is  often  the  germ  of  momentous  and  wholly  unlocked  for 
social  developments  altering  the  whole  trend  of  progress. 

We  stand  at  the  parting  of  the  ways.  We  have  reached  a 
social  turning-point.  To  move  forward  in  the  direction  in 
which  we  have  been  progressing,  to  allow  the  overgrown  and 
abnormal  development  of  over-shadowing  corporate  and  indi- 
vidual interests  to  continue,  must  before  long  destroy  even 
the  semblance  of  democratic  institutions  and  create  an  abso- 
lute plutocracy.  There  is  no  middle  course — no  possibility 
of  standing  still  and  expecting  that  the  relations  between 
capitalism  and  the  community  will  remain  as  at  present. 
There  can  be  no  "  arrested  development,"  no  Chinese  crystal- 
lization of  class  relationship  in  the  plastic  political  and  social 
organization  of  America. 

To  assert  that  because  hitherto,  since  the  era  of  industrial 
expansion  and  socialized  production,  the  working  of  the  law 
of  evolution  has  been  unfavorable  to  Democracy,  by  causing 
inequalities  in  condition  which  are  inconsistent  with  political 
equality,  is  to  ignore  the  new  factors  which  are  just  coming 
into  play — labor  organization  on  a  great  scale  and  the  grow- 
ing determination  to  use  the  ballot  as  a  remedy  for  social 
abuses.  The  political  power  of  the  masses,  so  far  as  this 
question  is  concerned,  has  been  an  unused  force.  Men  have 
been  divided  on  party  lines  based  on  unmeaning  distinctions 
or  obsolete  issues,  while,  under  the  influence  of  inherited  tra- 
ditions limiting  the  functions  of  government,  the  vital  and  all- 
important  new  questions  have  been  left  to  solve  themselves. 
The  unprecedented  interest  now  being  taken  in  the  Labor 
question  marks  another  such  pivotal  point  in  the  course  of 


THE  POLITICS  OF  LABOR.  85 

American  liberty  as  was  reached  when  the  aggression  of  the 
slave  power  aroused  the  conscience  and  manhood  of  the 
nation  against  it.  The  period  of  vague  unrest  and  chaotic 
upheavals  is  passing  into  the  stage  of  crystallization  of  thought 
and  directness  of  aim.  Spasmodic  local  movements  for  triv- 
ial and  temporary  objects  are  giving  place  to  general  combi- 
nations for  ends  which  are  becoming  more  clearly  defined. 
"The  chaos  of  a  mighty  world  is  rounding  into  form;"  the 
ideal  of  a  regenerated  society,  of  an  industrial  Democracy,  as 
the  ultimate  goal  of  endeavor  is  taking  the  place  of  those 
meager  concessions  and  partial  ameliorations  of  their  lot 
which  were  lately  all  that  the  masses  dared  to  hope  for.  By 
evolution  under  the  influence  of  the  "new  factor"  of  the 
opinion,  the  political  power,  and  the  united  action  of  the 
laboring  masses  can  this  goal  alone  be  reached. 

While  industrial  evolution  in  one  of  its  phases  has  been 
unfavorable  to  Democracy  by  degrading  the  citizen  into  a 
wage-serf,  in  another  aspect  it  has  immensely  simplified  the 
solution  of  the  problem  of  social  re-adjustment.  It  has 
created  a  system  which  is  well-nigh  perfect  in  its  details  so 
far  as  regards  the  organization  of  industry  and  the  mechanism 
of  exchange.  For  the  crude  and  cumbrous  methods  of  our 
ancestors  it  has  substituted  the  nicely-adjusted  and  smoothly- 
working  organization  of  forces  by  which  the  advantages  of 
division  of  labor  are  realized,  and  the  productive  capacity  of  all 
forms  of  industry  is  marvellously  increased.  To  transfer  from 
the  organizing  and  directing  force  of  capitalism  to  the  com- 
munity the  disproportionate  share  of  the  advantages  of  the 
system  which  capitalism  now  retains;  to  preserve  all  the  social 
benefits  arising  from  this  elaborate  mechanism  of  production 
and  traffic,  while  abolishing  the  injustice  and  spoliation 
resulting  from  the  control  by  and  in  the  interests  of  indi- 
viduals, is  a  much  less  formidable  undertaking  than  to  create 
a  social  Democracy  in  a  society  where  individualism  in  pro- 
duction has  prevailed.  It  is  easier  to  perfect  a  one-sided 
socialism  than  to  build  from  the  foundation. 

It  is  recorded  that  the  tyrant  Nero  once  wished  that  the 


86  THE  POLITICS  OF  LABOR. 

Roman  people  had  but  one  head  that  he  might  cut  it  off  at  a 
single  blow.  The  progress  of  centralization  is  rapidly  reduc- 
ing the  controlling  forces  of  some  forms  of  monopoly  to  this 
condition.  Every  year  weakens  the  power  of  resistance  to  an 
organized  attack  by  the  people,  because  it  diminishes  the 
number  of  those  personally  interested  in  maintaining  the 
present  situation.  In  connection  with  the  great  railroad  and 
telegraph  systems  especially,  the  number  of  heads  continually 
decreases,  and  the  final  process  of  decapitation  will  be  almost 
as  simple  as  that  longed  for  by  the  Roman  despot.  That  "  the 
rich  are  growing  richer  and  the  poor  poorer,"  is  a  favorite 
summing-up  of  the  situation  of  Labor  Reform  speakers  and 
writers.  They  should  not  overlook  the  fact  that  the  rich 
are  also  growing  fewer — relatively  at  least — and  the  poor 
more  numerous. 

There  are  some  who  are  disposed  to  regret  the  centralizing 
tendency  of  the  modern  system,  and  to  look  back  with  regret 
to  the  ante-machinery  days  and  lament  the  loss  of  the  greater 
opportunities  for  self-employment  which  then  existed.  Such 
regrets,  though  vain,  are  not  unnatural.  Those  living  in  a 
transition  stage,  and  feeling  the  evil  effects  of  the  system 
from  which  they  are  passing,  as  well  as  of  that  on  which  they 
are  entering,  are  more  prone  to  look  back  with  regret  than 
forward  with  hope.  But  a  return  to  the  days  of  individ- 
ualism is  neither  possible  nor  desirable.  Whether  we  like  it 
or  not  we  must  make  up  our  minds  that  the  great  change  in 
organization  induced  by  nineteenth  century  improvements 
and  appliances  is  irrevocable.  If  revolutions,  as  has  been  said, 
never  go  backward,  still  less  does  evolution.  To  perfect  and 
round  off  a  system,  the  development  of  which  in  some  direc- 
tions has  unduly  outstripped  its  growth  in  others,  is  the  only 
possible  remedy  for  transitional  evils. 

Systems  develop  rapidly  from  force  of  circumstances ;  while 
the  laws,  ideas,  traditions,  and  sentiments  of  men  are  slow  to 
take  on  the  change  necessary  to  adapt  them  to  the  altered 
situation.  Our  industrial  system,  considered  with  reference 
to  our  political  and  legal  institutions,  our  modes  of  thought, 


THE  POLITICS  OF  LABOR,  87 

and  the  approved  maxims  and  rules  of  conduct,  is  a  man  in 
the  clothes  of  a  boy.  As  regards  the  rights  of  society  and 
the  claims  of  its  individual  members,  we  are  dominated  by 
the  theories  of  individualism ;  while  the  system  under  which 
they  grew  up  has  been  largely  superseded. 

Herbert  Spencer,  in  the  "  Study  of  Sociology,"  thus  refers 
to  the  incongruity  frequently  presented  between  the  surviving 
principles  appertaining  to  a  past  stage  of  development  and 
the  present  conditions : 

"  The  illogicalities  and  the  absurdities  to  be  found  so  abundantly  in 
current  opinions  and  existing  arrangements,  are  those  which  inevitably 
arise  in  the  course  of  perpetual  readjustments  to  circumstances  perpe- 
tually changing.  Ideas  and  institutions,  proper  to  a  past  social  state,  but 
incongruous  with  the  new  social  state  that  has  grown  out  of  it,  sur- 
viving into  the  new  social  state  they  have  made  possible,  and  disappear- 
ing only  as  this  new  social  state  establishes  its  own  ideas  and  institu- 
tions, necessarily  furnish  elements  of  contradiction  in  men's  thoughts 
and  deeds.  And  yet  as,  for  the  carrying  on  of  social  life,  the  old  must 
continue  so  long  as  the  new  is  not  ready,  this  perpetual  compromise  is 
an  indispensable  accompaniment  of  a  normal  development." 

Strange  to  say,  Mr.  Spencer  himself,  in  his  politico-economi- 
cal teachings,  offers  a  most  striking  illustration  of  the  survival 
of  ideas  alien  to  the  newer  stage  of  development.  The  em- 
inent  expounder  of  the  evolution  hypothesis  as  applied  to 
social  growth  is  also  the  uncompromising  advocate  of  individ- 
ualism, the  so-called  right  of  free  contract  and  the  doctrine  of 
laissez  faire  in  its  extremest  form.  He  has  since  given  to 
the  world,  under  the  title  of  "  The  Man  vs.  the  State,"  a  work 
which  is  full  of  significance  in  its  bearing  en  the  labor  ques- 
tion. It  is  important  mainly  owing  to  its  admission  of  truths 
and  tendencies  entirely  contrary  to  the  views  of  the  author, 
and  as  proving  how  evolution  is  actually  bringing  about  a 
change  in  the  relations  between  the  government  and  the  peo- 
ple, altogether  at  variance  with  politico-economical  theories, 
but  under  the  irresistible  pressure  of  social  exigencies  and  A 
demand  too  strong  to  be  resisted.  No  one  laments  this  change 
more  than  Mr.  Spencer.  His  testimony  is  that  of  an  opponent 
of  anything  in  the  form  of  "paternal  government,"  and  'a 


88  THE  POLITICS  OF  LABOR. 

thorough  adherent  of  the  principle  of  non-interference.  Quot- 
ing a  very  large  number  of  remedial  and  regulating  measures 
passed  by  British  Liberal  governments  since  1860,  Mr.  Spen- 
cer urges  that  Liberalism  has  lost  its  distinctive  character. 
Because  acts  have  been  passed  giving  protection  to  various 
classes  of  factory  employees,  more  especially  women  and 
children,  providing  for  public  school  education,  nationalizing 
the  telegraph  lines,  prohibiting  the  sale  of  adulterated  and 
unwholesome  food,  and  amending  the  Merchant  Shipping  Act 
so  as  to  prevent  -sailors  being  sent  to  their  death  in  "  coffin 
ships  " — because  the  gross  and  flagrant  evils  arising  under 
"  free  contract  "  have  fairly  forced  upon  British  legislators  the 
necessity  of  taking  some  action  to  protect  those  who  cannot 
protect  themselves,  Herbert  Spencer,  under  the  influence  of 
our  surviving  traditions  of  individualism,  sounds  the  alarm 
that  the  liberties  of  the  people  are  in  danger  from  a  new  type 
of  Toryism.  It  is  amazing  that  so  acute  a  reasoner  in  the  do- 
main of  science  should  not  recognize  in  this  noteworthy  new 
departure  in  legislation  the  harmonious  working  of  the  law  of 
evolution. 

Industrial  development  has  revolutionized  England  more 
than  any  other  country  in  the  wrorld,  but  we  look  in  vain  in 
"The  Man  vs.  the  State"  for  any  recognition  of  the  vast 
social  transformation  wrought  by  the  steam-engine  and  the 
electric  wire,  the  spinning-machine  and  the  power-loom.  It 
does  not,  from  cover  to  cover,  contain  a  single  sentence  indi- 
cating that  the  author  has  taken  into  consideration  the  enor- 
mous social  and  industrial  difference  between  the  England  of 
a  century  ago,  when  the  old  Toryism  of  divine  right  and  aris- 
tocratic privilege  ruled  supreme,  and  the  England  of  to-day, 
with  a  popular  franchise,  and  what  the  author  calls  the  "New 
Toryism,"  restraining  in  the  name  of  justice  and  humanity  the 
greed  of  the  few  for  the  welfare  of  the  many.  It  is  not  the 
part  of  a  philosopher  to  ignore  completely  the  change  of  con- 
ditions, and  to  insist  upon  the  adherence  to  old  formulas  and 
traditions  of  legislation,  when  the  age  to  which  they  were 
suited  has  passed  away,  and  the  surroundings  have  altogether 
changed. 


THE  POLITICS  OF  LABOR.  89 

The  tendency  to  coercive  and  regulating  legislation  which 
Herbert  Spencer  deplores  is  the  natural  and  legitimate  result 
of  the  working  of  social  evolution,  the  functions  of  govern- 
ment being  developed  as  the  necessity  arises  for  their  exercise. 
These  powers  have  not  been  suddenly  or  arbitrarily  assumed — 
they  have  been  gradually  developed  owing  to  the  needs  of  the 
case.  Governments  have  been  by  no  means  eager  to  increase 
their  responsibilities  in  the  direction  and  regulation  of  depart- 
ments once  left  to  the  unrestricted  greed  of  private  enterprise, 
and  regulated  only  by  competition.  The  various  measures 
instanced  by  Mr.  Spencer,  far  from  being  willingly  adopted  by 
the  governing  class  to  increase  their  powrer,  as  he  infers,  have 
been  fairly  forced  on  them  by  public  opinion.  The  govern- 
ment of  England  has  not  gone  nearly  so  fast  nor  so  far  in  this 
direction  as  it  would  be  warranted  in  doing  by  the  sentiments 
of  those  who,  the  author  would  have  us  believe,  are  grievously 
oppressed  by  the  prevalence  of  paternal  legislation. 

There  is  every  reason  to  hope  that  Mr.  Spencer  forecasts 
the  future  aright  in  asserting  that  the  tendency  towards 
restrictive  legislation  of  the  character  referred  to  is  likely  to 
increase  in  the  future,  or,  to  quote  his  own  words,  that 
"  kindred  measures  effecting  kindred  changes  of  organization 
tend  with  ever  increasing  force  to  make  that  type  general, 
until,  passing  a  certain  point,  the  proclivity  to  it  becomes 
irresistible."  The  influence  of  precedent  is  exceedingly 
powerful,  and  in  the  reforms  already  adopted  are  the  germ  of 
a  universal  collectivism,  under  which  the  state,  organized 
upon  a  popular  basis,  and  acting  as  the  agent  of  the  mass 
of  producers,  can  organize  industry  and  distribution,  and 
supersede  capitalism.  The  tendency  which  Herbert  Spencer 
views  with  dread  because  it  runs  counter  to  his  cherished 
theories,  the  Labor  Reformer  should  hail  writh  joy  as  the  first 
step  on  the  way  to  deliverance  from  an  intolerable  thraldom. 
Further  advances  in  this  direction  are  thus  anticipated  : 

"  From  inspecting  lodging-houses  to  limit  the  numbers  of  occupants 
and  enforce  sanitary  conditions,  we  have  passed  to  inspecting  all  houses 
below  a  certain  rent  in  which  there  are  members  of  more  than  one 


90  THE  POLITICS  OF  LABOR. 

family,  and  are  now  passing  to  a  kindred  inspection  of  all  small  houses. 
The  buying  and  working  of  telegraphs  by  the  state  is  made  a  reason  for 
urging  that  the  state  should  buy  and  work  the  railways.  Supplying 
children  with  food  for  their  minds  by  public  agency  is  being  followed  in 
some  cases  by  supplying  food  for  their  bodies,  and  after  the  practice 
has  been  gradually  made  more  general  we  may  anticipate  that  the  sup- 
ply now  proposed  to  be  made  gratis  in  the  one  case,  will  eventually 
be  proposed  to  be  made  gratis  in  the  other  ;  the  argument  that  good 
bodies  as  well  as  good  minds  are  needful  to  make  good  citizens  being 
logically  urged  as  a  reason  for  the  extension.  And  then  avowedly  pro- 
ceeding on  the  precedents  furnished  by  the  church,  the  school,  and  the 
reading  room,  all  publicly  provided,  it  is  contended  that  pleasure  in  the 
sense  it  is  now  generally  admitted,  needs  legislating  for  and  organizing 
at  least  as  much  as  work." 

A  still  more  important  phase  in  the  distinctly  socialistic 
legislation  of  England  is  the  Irish  Land  Act  and  its  amend, 
ments,  in  which  the  principle  of  the  right  of  the  state  to 
regulate  the  use  of  the  soil,  irrespective  of  claims  of  personal 
ownership,  is  so  fully  asserted  that  it  will  at  a  future  day 
be  easy  to  widen  the  precedent  thus  laid  down  into  an  asser- 
tion of  complete  national  ownership.  By  no  violent  con- 
vulsion, but  by  directing  the  force  of  public  sentiment  and 
the  political  power  of  the  masses  to  the  securing  of  like 
changes  in  American  legislation,  by  the  irresistible  demand 
of  educated  and  organized  labor  that  the  people's  government 
shall  no  longer  hold  aloof  from  interference  with  matters 
hitherto  regarded  as  beyond  the  scope  of  governmental 
functions,  meeting  first  the  more  pressing  exigencies,  and 
rectifying  one  by  one  the  abuses  arising  from  monopoly  and 
competition,  will  a  better  and  more  equitable  social  system 
be  evolved. 


THE  POLITICS  OF  LABOR.  91 


CHAPTER  Y. 

LABOR   AND    GOVERNMENT. 

GOD  said,  I  am  tired  of  kings, 
I  suffer  them  no  more; 
Up  to  my  ear  the  morning  brings 
The  outrage  of  the  poor. 

Think  ye  I  made  this  ball 

A  field  of  havoc  and  war, 

Where  tyrants  great  and  tyrants  small, 

Might  harry  the  weak  and  poor  ? 

*  *  *  *  * 

Call  the  people  together, 
The  young  men  and  the  sires, 
The  digger  in  the  harvest  field, 
Hireling  and  him  that  hires. 

And  here  in  a  pine  state-house 
They  shall  choose  men  to  rule 
In  every  needful  faculty 
In  church  and  state  and  school. 

EMERSON. 

WHEN  the  people  of  the  American  colonies  threw  off  the 
yoke  of  a  foreign  monarchical  government,  and  established 
democratic  institutions,  they  fancied,  as  many  of  their  descend- 
ants of  to-day  fancy,  that  they  had  settled  the  question  of 
government  for  all  time.  So  far  as  machinery  is  concerned, 
they  secured  the  full  control  of  the  people  over  the  govern- 
ment as  far  as  the  sphere  of  government  extended.  But  in- 
fluenced by  British  traditions  they  limited  the  functions  and  the 
range  of  government,  partly  by  express  constitutional  provis- 
ions, and  partly  by  the  general  consensus  of  opinion  which 
is  potent  to  restrain  legislative  action  even  inside  of  the 
narrow  limits  of  its  constitutional  operation.  The  founders 
of  the  American  republic  had  good  reason  to  regard  with  a 
jealous  eye  the  powers  of  governments.  They  had  been  so 
accustomed  to  identify  the  idea  of  government  with  that  of 
arbitrary  and  irresponsible  power  under  the  monarchical  sys- 


92  THE  POLITICS  OF  LABOR. 

tern  that  it  is  not  surprising  that  the  ideal  which  found  most 
favor  with  them  was  that  of  a  government  which  should 
simply  maintain  order,  administer  justice,  and  leave  the 
people  as  free  as  possible  in  carrying  on  their  affairs. 

The  abuses  from  which  men  suffered  a  century  ago  were 
mainly  such  as  arose  from  a  tyrannical  misuse  of  the  govern- 
ing power,  from  restraints  upon  freedom  of  speech  or  printing, 
unjust  prosecutions,  unfair  and  crushing  taxation,  and  the 
insolent  or  overbearing  conduct  of  consequential  officials. 
The  yoke  of  government  was  heavy  throughout  Europe. 
The  ambitions  of  kings  and  statesmen  and  the  intrigues  of 
courts  caused  ruinous  and  ferocious  wars.  Kings  not  only 
reigned  in  those  days  but  governed,  and  as  a  rule  they  gov- 
erned badly,  having  only  their  own  aggrandizement  in  view. 
What  wonder  then  that  men  who  felt  these  evils  came  to 
regard  government,  the  general  type  of  which  was  the  mon- 
archy, as  something  not  merely  apart  from,  but  antagonistic 
to  the  people — a  power  requiring  to  be  -curbed  by  every  pos- 
sible means?  The  idea  that  danger  to  popular  liberty  could 
come  from  any  other  source  formed  no  place  in  their  calcula- 
tions. In  that  age  of  simple  social  arrangements  and  self- 
dependent  isolated  industries,  when  men  travelled  little  and 
dealt  almost  wholly  with  their  neighbors,  and  large  corporate 
interests  were  unknown,  the  government  which  interfered 
least  and  left  industry  and  commerce  to  regulate  themselves 
seemed  perfection.  Little  government  was  needed,  and  a 
system  that  put  the  ballot  in  every  man's  hand  and  confined 
the  objects  of  administration  to  the  narrowest  scope  consist- 
ent with  a  national  existence  was  all-sufficient. 

But  now  all  this  has  changed.  Side  by  side  with  the 
democratic  system  of  government,  under  which  every  man  is 
sovereign,  has  grown  up  the  commercial,  industrial,  and  finan- 
cial organization  under  which  every  laborer  is  a  wage-serf.  It 
touches  the  lives  and  well-being  of  the  people  at  a  thousand 
points,  where  the  government  controls  them  in  one.  Not 
only  in  America,  but  the  world  over  does  the  power  of  cap- 
jtalism  bear  the  real  sway  and  continually  encroach  upon  th§ 


THE  POLITICS  OF  LABOR.  93 

functions  formerly  possessed  by  the  ruler.  Well  may  it  be 
said  that  "the  kings  reign  but  no  longer  govern."  Capitalism 
is  king.  The  real  rulers  are  not  the  puppet  princes  and  jump- 
ing-jack  statesmen  who  strut  their  little  hour  upon  the 
world's  stage,  but  the  money  kings,  railroad  presidents,  and 
great  international  speculators  and  adventurers  who  control 
the  money-market  and  the  highways  of  commerce.  Where  is 
the  emperor  or  premier  in  Europe  that  has  the  power  of  the 
Rothschilds?  What  American  president  or  congress  ever 
exercised  as  much  influence  over  the  lives  and  fortunes  of 
large  masses  of  the  people  as  Jay  Gould  ?  Every  war,  every 
peace,  every  commercial  treaty  is  dictated  not  by  the  men 
who  do  the  stage  business  and  dazzle  the  crowd  by  their  dis- 
plays of  regal  splendor  and  court  ceremonials,  but  by  a  few 
shrewd,  sharp,  long-headed  business  men  who  form  the  power 
behind  the  throne.  All  the  diplomatic  flummery  and  form- 
alism, all  the  pomp  and  glitter  of  imperial  state,  are  so 
much  empty  sham  behind  which  the  hand  of  the  financier  and 
the  representative  of  large  corporate  interests  pulls  the  wires. 
The  real  government  of  our  nineteenth  century  civilization  is 
not  the  parliamentary  or  administrative  bodies  in  the  name 
of  which  laws  are  promulgated.  It  is  the  industrial  and 
business  and  social  organization  which  governs  by  its  iron 
laws  that  need  no  popular  assent,  and  cannot,  as  matters 
stand,  be  affected  by  the  vote  of  those  upon  whom  they  press 
hardly.  What  law  that  can  be  passed  at  Washington  or 
Albany  or  Boston  has  such  vital,  all-absorbing  interest  for 
labor  as  the  unwritten,  arbitrary  law  which  says — "You, 
wage  slave,  have  produced  for  us,  your  masters,  so  much 
wealth  that  we  are,  in  fact,  suffering  from  over-production. 
Therefore  it  is  decreed  that  the  factory  shall  be  closed  until 
further  notice."  What  law  duly  assented  to  by  the  president 
or  state  governor,  and  printed  in  the  statute  book,  is  one, 
tenth  as  important  to  the  toiler  as  the  silent  informal  decree 
of  landlordism,  "  That  whereas  the  necessities  of  the  public 
for  accommodation  have  increased,  therefore  rents  are  hence' 
forth  increased,  twenty  per  cent."  Where  is  the  Jaw 


94  THE  POLITICS  OF  LABOR. 

formulated  in  good  set  terms  and  redundant  legal  phraseology 
that  affects  the  toiling  millions  as  much  as  do  the  machina- 
tions of  the  speculators  who  combine  to  put  up  the  price  of 
coal,  and  wheat,  and  pork  ?  What  are  the  government  taxes 
to  the  exactions  continually  levied  on  industry  by  the  land- 
lord and  the  usurer,  the  profit-monger  and  the  capitalist  ? 

Frequently  there  is  destitution  and  semi- starvation  in  the 
land  because  of  the  edict  of  the  government — the  real  "gov- 
ernment" of  capitalism — which  decrees  that  labor  must  starve 
and  stint  itself  to  restrict  production — that  wages  must  be 
reduced  and  factories  shut  down  until  the  surplus  stocks  are 
worked  off.  Who  voted  for  this  measure?  What  political 
candidate  stumped  the  country,  promising  a  general  restric- 
tion of  production  as  a  cure  for  industrial  evils  ?  Where,  in 
short,  does  the  idea  of  self-government  and  popular  freedom 
apply,  if  measures  of  such  life  and  death  consequence  to  the 
people  can  be  carried  out,  not  merely  without  the  people  hav- 
ing any  voice  in  them,  but  without  any  one  even  imagining 
that  these  are  matters  on  which  they  have  the  right  to  be  con- 
sulted. How  paltry  and  insignificant  are  the  party  issues 
over  which  politicians  wrangle  and  voters  spend  their  time 
and  breath  compared  with  the  questions  of  work  and  wages, 
and  freedom  to  use  the  natural  resources  of  the  earth  without 
being  taxed  to  maintain  a  host  of  idlers?  Yet  we  are  told 
that  such  measures  as  would  secure  to  labor  its  rights  are 
"  unpractical."  The  real  objection  is  that  they  are  a  great 
deal  too  practical  for  the  exploiting  classes,  who  are  quite 
willing  that  the  people  should  amuse  themselves  by  playing 
at  politics,  overturning  and  establishing  sham  governments, 
while  capitalism  retains  the  real  power  in  its  hands. 

The  people  have  in  the  United  States  political  power ;  in 
other  countries  they  are  attaining  it.  But  what  is  the  good 
of  it  to  them,  if  it  is  to  be  confronted  and  hemmed  in  on 
every  side  by  the  non-political  but  organized  power  of  mono- 
polies, rings,  and  corporations,  and  the  entire  social  machinery 
in  the  hands  of  capitalism  and  landlordism  ?  Where  is  the 
benefit  to  the  worker  of  a  free  ballot,  if  on  all  live,  practical, 


THE  POLITICS  OF  LABOR.  95 

bread-and-butter  questions  he  is  to  be  told  "  Hands  off !  This 
is  not  a  political  matter.  This  must  be  left  in  the  hands  of 
private  enterprise.  We  cannot  interfere  with  the  sacred 
right  of  free  contract !  " 

The  growth  of  popular  sovereignty  should  be  so  directed  as 
to  breathe  the  breath  of  life  into  the  decaying  systems  of 
government,  and  substitute  for  their  formal  parade  and  empty 
ceremonial,  a  vital,  active  interest  in  matters  now  considered 
beyond  the  scope  of  legislative  interference.  Let  government, 
as  the  representative  of  the  whole  people,  step  in  and,  instead 
of  being  controlled  by  the  machinery  of  capitalism,  control  it 
through  all  its  ramifications.  In  place  of  the  capitalistic  rule, 
which  in  the  true  sense  now  governs  the  people  by  prescrib- 
ing whether  they  shall  work  or  not,  and  how  much  they  shall 
receive,  let  us  have  a  representative,  popular,  recognized  gov- 
ernment, conducted  on  business  principles,  doing  the  same 
thing  not  for  the  profit  of  a  few,  but  in  the  interests  of  all. 
Instead  of  the  capitalist  being  "  free  "  to  say,  "  Work  on  my 
terms  or  starve  ;  buy  coal  on  my  terms  or  freeze  ;  rent  a  house 
on  my  terms  or  become  a  homeless  vagrant " — the  people 
should  be  free  to  organize  every  department  of  labor  and  dis- 
tribution through  their  representatives.  Until  this  kind  of 
freedom  can  be  secured  political  liberty  is  to  the  disinherited 
a  mockery  and  a  delusion.  This  is  the  ideal  which  Labor  Re- 
formers should  keep  steadily  in  view,  not  as  something  to  be 
attained  by  a  ready-made  Socialistic  scheme,  cut-and-dried  as 
to  all  its  details,  to  be  suddenly  imposed  upon  the  nation  by 
the  power  of  the  majority,  but  to  be  reached  by  the  process 
of  development — by  the  gradual  extension  of  the  powers  of 
government,  beginning  with  the  departments  in  which  the 
evils  of  capitalism  are  most  obvious,  and  popular  opinion  is 
most  favorable  to  a  new  departure. 

The  tendency  towards  Collectivism  against  which  Herbert 
Spencer  and  the  doctrinaries  of  the  laissez  faire  school  pro- 
test is  the  first  step  in  that  change  of  the  character  and  aims 
of  government  which  will  have  to  be  accomplished  before  it 
can  permanently  and  effectively  redress  the  evil  of  one-sided 


96  THE  POLITICS  OF  LABOE. 

Socialism.  It  prepares  the  government  to  accept  the  wider 
and  more  important  functions  to  be  forced  upon  it,  and  breaks 
down  the  old  mediaeval  idea  of  government  as  a  power  aloof 
from  and  above  the  people,  paving  the  way  for  the  acceptance 
of  the  new  radical  idea,  that  government  should  be  nothing 
more  than  a  committee  delegated  by  the  people  to  attend  to 
their  business  with  as  little  unnecessary  ceremonial  or  form- 
ality as  may  be. 

The  most  perfect  form  of  government  in  the  world  will  not 
of  itself  avail  to  better  the  condition  of  the  people.  The  elec- 
tion of  chief  magistrates,  legislators,  judges,  and  all  the  rest 
of  the  officials  by  manhood  suffrage  or  universal  suffrage  may 
mean  but  "the  liberty  to  choose  one's  jailer."  A  corrupt 
Senate  is  as  great  a  drawback  to  progress  as  an  obstructive 
aristocracy.  A  president  or  governor  in  league  with  money 
or  railroad  rings  is  as  deadly  a  foe  to  popular  freedom  and 
prosperity  as  any  Bourbon  or  Stuart  who  ever  claimed  the 
"  right  divine  to  govern  wrong."  That  Democracy  will  by 
its  intrinsic  merits  bring  about  a  change  for  the  better  in  the 
conditions  under  which  labor  lives,  exists,  or  starves,  is  one  of 
those  fondly  cherished  delusions  which  will  not  stand  the  test 
of  experience. 

Those  who  have  held  that  the  mere  possession  of  power  by 
the  people,  irrespective  of  its  use,  would  accomplish  their  de- 
liverance have  confounded  the  means  with  the  end,  the  tools 
with  the  work.  What  should  we  think  of  a  carpenter  who 
should  take  great  care  to  provide  himself  with  the  very  best 
kit  of  tools  procurable,  spend  his  time  sharpening  and  polish- 
ing them  and  getting  them  into  excellent  order,  and  never  do 
a  stroke  of  work  with  them  ?  Should  we  have  much  pity  for 
such  a  man  were  he  to  find  himself  destitute  and  to  begin 
to  express  his  wonder  that  a  carpenter  who  had  so  thoroughly 
equipped  himself  with  the  implements  of  his  trade  could  not 
earn  enough  to  live  on  ?  Yet  he  would  make  no  worse 
mistake  than  the  people  who,  having  equipped  themselves 
with  a  well-adjusted  democratic  constitution,  now  wonder 
that  the  machine  does  not  right  social  abuses.  So  far  Dem- 


THE  POLITICS  OF  LABOR.  97 

ocracy  has  done  little  more  than  sharpen  its  tools.  The  tools 
are  necessary  for  the  work,  but  to  get  them  in  order  is  not 
the  work  itself.  It  is  important  that  everyone  subject  to  the 
laws  should  possess  the  franchise.  But  it  is  still  more  im- 
portant that  those  who  have  it  should  use  it  well  and  intelli- 
gently to  redress  inequalities  and  guard  the  rights  of  labor. 
All  forms  of  government  can  be  taken  advantage  of  by  men 
to  maintain  themselves  in  power  and  pervert  instrumentalities 
designed  to  be  beneficent  into  the  means  of  plundering  and 
oppressing  the  people.  But  under  democracy  it  requires  more 
cunning,  shrewdness,  and  deceit  to  do  this  than  under  a  mon- 
archy, and  it  needs  furthermore  the  connivance  or  apathy  of  a 
majority  of  the  people  themselves.  Democratic  institutions 
are  the  beneficent  instruments  by  which  it  is  possible  for  the 
working-classes  to  redress  every  abuse  of  the  monopoly  and 
competitive  system.  It  puts  into  their  own  hands  the  means 
of  their  emancipation.  But  to  revert  to  the  tool  simile,  the 
very  best  set  of  carpenters'  tools  will  not  build  a  house  or  even 
a  hog-pen  unless  there  is  the  force,  the  skill,  and  the  knowl- 
edge behind  if  necessary  for  the  work.  So  with  demo- 
cratic institutions;  there  is  no  benefit  to  the  masses  of  the 
people  in  having  access  to  the  ballot-box  unless  they  use  their 
votes  rightly  and  intelligently  to  protect  themselves  against 
the  encroachments  of  capitalism.  Machines  will  not  run 
themselves.  There  is  no  Keeley  motor  in  politics. 

Unless  the  working-people  of  America  make  use  of  their 
ballots  to  kill  capitalism,  capitalism  will  kill  freedom,  even 
such  theoretical  freedom  as  the  mere  possession  of  the  fran- 
chise implies.  Doctrines  and  ideas  utterly  antagonistic  to  the 
foundation  principles  of  Democracy  have  obtained  a  strong 
hold  upon  the  wealthy  classes.  Propositions  for  the  abolition 
of  manhood  suffrage  are  tentatively  thrown  out  and  hinted  at 
in  influential  quarters.  The  Chicago  Current^  a  representa- 
tive organ  of  that  literary  culture  which  draws  its  inspiration 
from  European  sources  and  is  distinctively  un-American  in  its 
ideals  and  modes  of  thought,  in  the  spring  of  1885  published 
an  article  assailing  manhood  suffrage  in  the  most  outspoken 
fashion.  A  portion  of  it  read  as  follows : 


X 


98  THE  POLITICS  OF  LABOR. 

J "  At  present  society  is  struggling  with  a  manhood  suffrage  which  no 
one  denies  is  full  of  evils.  No  change  is  made.  The  present  evils  are 
deplored  not  the  less,  but  the  fear  is  general  of  greater  ills  to  be  fastened 
upon  us  (and  the  worse  the  disease  the  more  difficult  the  cure.)  Under 
the  existing  regime  in  large  cities  a  cellar-full  of  celibates,  sleeping  in 
bunks  at  the  price  of  five  or  ten  cents  a  night,  doing  less  than  twenty- 
five  cents  worth  of  work  a  day,  year  in  and  year  out,  march  to  the  polls 
and  wield  a  force  equal  to  that  exercised  by  the  heads  of  twenty-five 
families,  in  each  of  which  families  are  wife,  children,  dependent  rela- 
tives, and  domestic  aids,  each  infinitely  more  useful  and  promising  than 
the  dime  lodger*^ 

There  is  no  doubt  that  this  passage  fairly  expresses  the 
opinion  of  the  large  and  influential  class  for  which  the  Cur- 
rent and  journals  of  its  stamp  cater.  Of  all  phases  of  reac- 
tionary sentiment  that  which  speaks  in  the  name  of  'culture, ' 
and  professes  to  represent  the  superior  intellect  of  the  com- 
munity, is  the  meanest  and  most  malignant.  It  lacks  even 
the  poor  excuse  of  self-interest,  arid  throws  its  influence  into 
the  scale  against  Labor  Reform  gratuitously.  The  culture 
which  looks  merely  on  the  outward  symptoms  of  social  disor- 
ganization, taking  no  note  of  their  deep-seated  causes,  is  merely 
a  book-learned  ignorance.  Capitalism,  having  produced  the 
social  outcasts  whose  power  in  politics  is  so  hypocritically 
deplored,  by  first  robbing  them  of  their  natural  rights  and 
then  defrauding  them  of  the  fair  value  of  their  labor,  now 
proposes  the  crowning  outrage  of  depriving  them  of  the.nae.ans 
by  which  they  might  recover  their  lost  heritage.  1  The 
Atlantic  Monthly  some  time  since  published  an  article  in 
favor  of  cumulative  voting — as  less  likely  to  arouse  antagonism 
than  the  actual  disfranchisement  of  the  poor.  The  man  of 
wealth  was  to  receive  additional  votes  in  proportion  to  his 
possessiousj  No  less  prominent  a  political  leader  than  Ros- 
coe  Conkling  has  more  than  once  given  expression  to  the 
same  idea,  that  property,  and  not  manhood,  ought  to  be  the 
basis  of  political  power.  In  a  letter  dated  Utica,  N.  Y., 
September  1st,  1880,  which  occasioned  some  comment  at  the 
time,  speaking  of  the  Republican  party,  he  said : — 

"  Those  who  compose  it,  and  the  communities  and  States  which 


THE  POLITICS  OF  LAB  OK.  99 

uphold  it,  represent  an  overwhelming  preponderance  of  the  material 
interests  of  the  country,  the  agricultural,  productive,  and  tax-paying 
interests,  and  in  every  partnership  it  is  wise  and  safe  for  those  who  own 
the  most  to  keep  their  share  of  control.  Whenever  in  a  business  con- 
cern— and  the  government  of  every  country  is  in  the  highest  sense  a 
business  concern — money  is  to  be  expended  or  obligations  incurred, 
those  who  are  to  do  the  paying  had  better  do  the  deciding,  in  the  first 
place,  whether  the  thing  is  wise  at  all." 

f  IrT  another  letter,  dated  Utica,  September  7th,  1880,  ad- 
dressed to  the  editor  of  the  Burlington  Hawkeye,  Mr.  Conk- 
ling  said  in  reference  to  the  administration  of  the  affairs  of 
the  Government : — 

"  In  a  joint  stock  association  all  stockholders  and  all  classes  of  stock- 
holders should  have  their  full  share  and  full  rights;  but  whenever  those 
who  have  the  bulk,  put  the  whole  into  the  hands  of  those  who  own  but 
little,  there  is  much  unwisdom  in  it  *  *  When  an  administration,  a 
Congressional  majority  or  a  party  represent  those  who  do  most  of  the 
paying,  who  carry  on  most  of  the  business,  who  feel  most  of  the  loss  or 
gain,  who  have  done  most  and  given  most,  and  have  in  all  things  most 
at  stake,  that  administration,  that  majority,  that  party  is  a  safer  agent 
to  trust  than  an  agent  more  deeply  interested  for  somebody  else." 


When,  in  the  height  of  a  presidential  campaign,  a  party 
leader  of  Mr.  Conkling's  standing  gives  utterance  to  such 
sentiments,  the  one  interpretation  offwlTich  is  that  men  are 
entitled  to  political  power  in  proportion  to  their  wealth,  we 
can  realize  how  far  such  reactionary  ideas  have  spread  among 
the  moneyed  classes,  and  how  gladly  they  would,  if  they  but 
dared,  deprive  labor  of  its  franchise^ 

But  this  tendency  is  not  theoretical  merely.  The  retro- 
gressive and  anti-democratic  views  of  capitalism  have  been 
carried  into  practice  to  a  much  greater  extent  than  is  generally 
supposed.  Under  the  specious  guise  of  registration  laws  the 
attainment  of  the  suffrage  is  in  many  states  hedged  about  with 
restrictions  and  attended  with  disabilities  which  practically 
deprive  a  very  large  proportion  of  the  laboring-class  of  the 
right  to  vote.  The  insidious  provisions  of  laws  which  make 
the  payment  of  a  poll-tax  a  pre-requisite  to  voting,  and  require 
the  citizen  to  lose  the  time  necessary  to  see  that  his  name 


100 


THE  POLITICS  OF  LABOR. 


appears  upon  the  register — a  serious  matter  often  to  a  poor 
man,  to  whom  the  loss  of  even  a  few  hours  means  the  depriva- 
tion of  some  home  comfort — have  disfranchised  great  masses  of 
the  toilers.  Shortly  after  the  presidential  election  of  1880 
the  New  York  Herald  published  a  table  giving  the  number 
of  males  of  voting  age  in  each  state  and  the  number  who 
actually  voted.  The  figures  are  very  suggestive.  In  only 
six  states  was  the  proportion  of  actual  voters  to  the  adult 
male  population  over  80  per  cent.  In  the  pivotal  state  of 
New  York  it  was  78  per  cent,  in  Massachusetts  only  56  per 
cent ;  and  in  most  of  the  remaining  states  the  percentage  was 
between  these  figures.  In  Rhode  Island,  indeed,  under  the 
un-American  real-estate  qualification  system,  the  actual  voters 
only  amounted  to  38  per  cent  of  the  adult  males.  >  Making 
every  allowance  for  voluntary  abstention  and  unavoidable  ab- 
sence, these  figures  indicate  but  too  surely  the  deprivation  of  the 
franchise  to  which  the  poorer  classes  have  been  subjected  by 
registration  laws,  shifting  upon  the  individual  the  duty  rightly 
belonging  to  the  state  of  securing  the  right  of  suffrage  to 
those  entitled  to  it,  and  by  a  poll-tax  levied  under  conditions 
which  make  it  virtually  a  tax  on  voting. 

Could  any  statistics  show  the  proportion  of  instances  in 
which  the  ballot  cast  by  the  laborer  was  in  reality  the  vote  of 
the  employer  given  under  the  menace  or  the  dread  of  loss  of 
work;  could  any  figures  indicate  the  extent  of  intimidation 
practiced  by  powerful  corporations  or  individual  capitalists 
upon  those  dependent  upon  them,  the  result  would  be  yet 
more  startling.  The  right  conferred  on  all  by  the  founders 
of  the  republic  is  worse  than  withheld  when  it  is  perverted 
by  coercion  or  bribery  to  become  an  instrument  of  oppres- 
sion. Then  it  may  be  said  that  "the  spirit  of  murder  works 
in  the  very  means  of  life." 

The  growth  of  the  labor  question  as  a  factor  in  politics,  and 
the  deference  which  each  party,  however  hypocritically,  feels 
called  upon  to  pay  to  labor  in  the  caucus  and  the  convention, 
are  hopeful  signs.  From  one  aspect  nothing  can  be  more 
sickening  than  to  see  politicians  who  have  not  a  single  aspira- 


THE  POLITICS  OF  LABOR.  101 

tion  or  idea  in  common  with  Labor  Reformers  and  whose  inter- 
ests and  sympathies  are  all  on  the  side  of  capitalism,  posing  as 
the  friends  of  labor,  and  inserting  in  the  party  platforms, 
pledges  which  they  have  not  the  remotest  intention  of  fulfill- 
ing, in  order  to  "  capture  the  labor  vote."  Parties  whose 
course  as  a  whole  has  been  utterly  adverse  to  the  interests  of 
the  masses,  owing  to  whose  shameful  betrayal  of  the  respon- 
sibilities confided  to  them  the  evils  of  the  situation  have  been 
intensified,  have  of  late  felt  it  incumbent  upon  them  to  recog- 
nize the  growing  disposition  of  the  wage-earning  classes  to  use 
their  ballots  in  their  own  behalf.  To  conciliate  the  labor  vote 
and  head  off  any  broad,  comprehensive  scheme  of  political 
action  looking  to  a  radical  and  organic  change  in  the  rela- 
tions between  labor  and  capitalism,  the  parties  pay  Labor  Re- 
formers the  hypocritical  tribute  of  sympathetic  professions 
and  platforms  embodying  some  of  the  demands  made  by  or- 
ganized labor.  Under  the  pressure  of  party  exigencies 
millionaires  whose  lives  have  been  one  long  course  of  greed 
and  grab,  lawyers  whose  ingenuity  and  technical  knowledge 
have  been  perverted  to  the  overthrow  of  justice  and  the  ag- 
grandizement of  corporations,  and  the  whole  tribe  of  venal 
and  unscrupulous  politicians  who  have  ever  been  the  servile 
tools  of  capitalism  have  been  compelled  to  admit  the  necessity 
of  considering  in  legislation  the  interests  of  the  laboring 
masses.  Utterly  insincere  as  these  formal  professions  are, 
inadequate  as  are  the  palliative  measures  so  far  secured  by 
appealing  to  the  political  hopes  and  fears  of  partisans,  they 
nevertheless  both  indicate  and  hasten  a  change  in  public 
opinion  which  is  likely  to  be  much  more  far-reaching  and  mo- 
mentous in  its  consequences  than  they  anticipate. 

Hitherto  the  politicians  have  used  labor.  The  time  has 
come  when  labor  must  use  the  politicians.  The  politicians 
have  been  able  to  use  labor  because  working-men  have  put 
party  first.  When  they  put  labor  first  and  let  party  interests 
look  out  for  themselves  they  can  make  the  politicians  their 
obsequious  servants.  It  is  the  prejudice,  the  ignorance,  the 
unreasoning  servile  devotion  to  political  leaders  who  have 


102  THE  POLITICS  OF  LABOR. 

duped  them,  and  to  parties  which  have  always  played  into  the 
hands  of  capitalism,  which  are  alone  to  blame  for  the  scant 
consideration  received  by  labor  in  politics. 

Political  movements,  like  those  of  natural  forces,  follow  what 
is  termed  by  the  scientists  "  the  line  of  least  resistance." 
Capitalism  dominates  in  public  life  because  it  knows  no  party. 
The  great  corporations  and  millionaires  sit  loose  to  the  ties  of 
partyism.  They  look  upon  politics  simply  as  a  means  of  ad- 
vancing their  own  interests,  and  throw  the  money-bags  into 
either  scale,  according  as  they  think  those  interests  will  be 
besj^ecured. 

The  great  majority  of  wage-earners,  on  the  contrary,  allow 
their  partisan  feelings  to  control  their  political  action.  A 
little  hypocritical  deference  on  the  part  of  the  party  managers, 
the  inclusion  in  the  platform  of  a  trivial  concession  or  two  in 
the  shape  of  resolutions  against  prison  labor  or  Chinese  im- 
migration, a  few  nominations  of  professed  Labor  Reformers  for 
minor  offices  are  quite  sufficient  to  keep  them  in  line  with  the 
party.  That  the  whole  tenor  and  aim  of  its  course,  with  these 
exceptions,  is  opposed  to  the  rights  of  the  people  and  dictated 
by  devotion  to  the  money  power  is  not  sufficient  to  shake  their 
allegiance-J 

The  politicians  know  that  to  refuse  to  give  legal  sanction  to 
the  encroachments  of  monopoly  would  lose,  them  the  support 
of  capitalism.  They  have  no  reason  to  believe  that  the  de- 
fection would  be  offset  in  any  appreciable  measure  by  in- 
creased popular  support^  While  the  money-power  is  swayed 
.  \  solely  by  selfish  considerations,  the  people  cling  tenaciously  to 
their  parties^  Is  it  any  wonder  that  the  politician  seeks  to 
preserve  the  equilibrium  by  giving  an  inch  to  labor  where  he 
gives  an  ell  to  capitalism  ? 

{The  hold  which  party  associations  and  traditions  have  ob- 
tained over  the  masses  of  the  American  people  is  the  greatest 
obstacle  to  any  present  advance^  Under  this  malign  spell 
many  men  who,  outside  of  politics,  are  enlightened  in  their 
views  and  thoroughly  convinced  of  the  necessity  of  such 
social  changes  as  will  secure  a  just  system  of  distribution  and 


THE  POLITICS  OF  LABOR.  103 

destroy  monopoly,  may  be  found,  year  after  year,  plunging 
into  the  excitement  of  political  contests,  fought  out  between 
parties  both  of  which  are  controlled  by  capitalistic  influence, 
on  issues  which  completely  ignore  the  supreme  question  of 
social  and  industrial  re-adjustment.  Energy  and  intelligence 
which  ought  rightly  to  be  devoted  to  the  solution  of  the 
labor  problem  are  worse  than  wasted  over  the  petty,  mislead- 
ing, idle  issues  which  partyism  keeps  in  view ;  and  the  attention 
of  the  people  is  distracted  by  campaigns  which,  whatever 
the  result,  settle  no  question  of  real  significance,  because 
neither  party  represents  any  principle  which  has  any  bearing 
upon  the  vital  needs  of  the  community. 

Repeated  attempts  have  been  made  to  organize  third  par- 
ties, to  maintain  popular  rights  against  the  sinister  influences 
of  capitalism,  which  have  rendered  the  Republican  and  Demo- 
cratic parties  corrupt  to  the  core.  The  Greenback,  Labor, 
National,  and  Anti-monopoly  organizations  have  sprung  up, 
rallied  adherents  to  their  support,  won  some  local  vic- 
tories, and  finally  dwindled  away  and  become  resolved  into 
their  original  elements.  The  absorbing  interest  and  conta- 
gious enthusiasm  of  the  great  quadrennial  fight  for  the  Presi- 
dency, involving  the  personal  interests  of  hundreds  of  thou- 
sands of  oftice-seekers  and  office-holders,  draws  away  the  sup- 
porters of  the  smaller  parties.  The  temptation  to  share -the 
glory  and  participate  in  the  spoils  of  present  success  is  much 
stronger  to  the  minds  of  most  men  than  the  inducement  to 
stand  up  for  a  principle.  [A  grave  defect  in  the  American 
character  is  its  impatience  of  small  beginnings  and  slow  growth. 
Unless  a  movement  carries  everything  before  it  with  a 
rush,  and  bears  down  all  opposition  with  the  momentum  of 
numbers  and  enthusiasm,  the  mass  easily  become  disheartened. 
They  must  have  immediate  tangible  results,  a  growth  like 
that  of  Jack's  beanstalk  in  the  nursery  story,  a  birth  like 
that  of  Minerva  springing  forth  armed  from  the  brain  of 
Jupiter,  or  the  enthusiasm  soon  gives  place  to  apathyj 
When  this  predominating  temperament  is  considered  it  is 
hardly  surprising  that  parties  which  could  offer  to  their  sup- 


104  THE  POLITICS  OF  LABOR. 

porters  no  prospect  of  immediate  triumphs  on  a  large  scale, 
and  no  stimulus  in  the  way  of  patronage,  excepting  so  far  as 
these  might  be  secured  by  demoralizing  alliances  with  one  or 
other  of  the  older  parties,  have  crumbled  away  under  the 
pressure  of  the  quadrennial  struggle,  leaving  merely  skeleton 
organizations  to  tell  of  their  existence. 

But  although  in  the  past  these  efforts  have  proved  futile 
against  capitalism  entrenched  behind  the  rampants  of  party, 
there  is  no  reason  to  despair  of  the  future.  If  the  regular 
parties  have  so  far  been  able  to  hold  their  following  it  has 
only  been  by  repeated  concessions  and  pledges  to  labor. 
Slight  and  insincere  as  these  may  be,  they  nevertheless  are  an 
indication  too  plain  to  be  misinterpreted  of  the  influence  of 
the  new  factor  in  public  affairs.  They  are  the  thin  end  of 
the  wedge.  When  the  people  learn  in  the  process  of  political 
education  now  going  forward  that  the  concessions  are  futile 
so  long  as  the  wage  system  remains  intact,  and  that  the 
pledges  are  only  made  to  be  broken,  a  new  departure  on  a 
broader  scale,  either  within  or  outside  of  party  lines,  may  be 
looked  for. 

\  The  success  of  the  Irish  Nationalists  under  Parn ell's  leader- 
ship in  dictating  the  policy  of  the  Liberal  party  of  England, 
overthrowing  coercion,  and  advancing  the  cause  of  Home 
Rule  so  as  to  bring  it,  as  the  phrase  goes,  within  the  scope  of 
"  practical  politics  "  is  destined  to  give  a  powerful  stimulus 
to  the  action  of  revolutionary  parties  on  both  sides  of  the 
Atlantic.  If  not  the  originator,  Mr.  Parn  ell  is  at  all  events 
the  first  to  carry  to  a  successful  issue  the  idea  of  the  balance 
of  power  in  polities.  He  has  demonstrated  that  a  small  but 
compact,  unanimous,  and  determined  party,  holding  itself  apart 
from  the  two  greater  organizations,  never  sinking  its  identity, 
but  willing  to  co-operate  with  either  or  both  in  turns  without 
merging  itself  in  their  following,  can  virtually  make  its  own 
terms.!  So  long  as  the  Irish  members  of  the  English  Parlia- 
ment-were divided  on  English  issues,  and  adhered  to  one  or 
other  of  the  historic  British  parties,  Ireland  might  ask  in  vain 
for  justice.  When  Parnell  arose,  and  a  handful  of  Irish 


THE  POLITICS  OF  LABOR.  105 

members  shook  themselves  free  from  party  ties,  set  political 
traditions  and  public  opinion  at  defiance,  and  made  Ireland's 
welfare  their  paramount  object,  they  assured  large  instalments 
of  reform.  They  have  already  overthrown  two  British 
administrations,  and  stand  ready  to  turn  out  a  dozen  in  suc- 
cession if  need  be  to  secure  their  object. 

The  lesson  should  not  be  lost  upon  American  Labor  Re- 
formers. Had  Parnell  been  afraid  of  "  hurting  the  party," 
the  land  act  would  never  have  been  passed,  coercion  would 
to-day  be  in  full  force,  and  Home  Rule  would  be  as  far  off  as 
it  was  ten  years  ago.  The  American  working-man,  if  he  really 
desires  to  use  the  ballot  effectively  to  secure  Labor  Reform, 
must  get  over  his  squeamishness  as  to  the  effect  of  his  action 
on  "  the  party." 

Owing  to  the  differences  between  the  English  responsible 
government  system  and  Democracy,  it  would  not  be  possible 
to  bring  the  balance-of-power  principle  into  play  so  frequently 
in  American  state  or  national  politics  as  in  England,  where 
the  life  of  the  administration  depends  upon  its  retaining  a  leg- 
islative majority]  But,  on  the  other  hand,  parties  are  so  even- 
ly balanced  that  a  much  smaller  force  would  suffice  to  turn 
the  scale  at  a  presidential  election.  A  small  matter  of  1047 
votes  in  New  York  State,  in  the  election  of  1884,  made  Gro- 
ver  Cleveland  president.  The  electoral  vote  of  that  state  is 

pttfiarly  always  decisive  of  the  result  in   Presidential  contests. 

I  Imagine  the  organized  labor  of  the  Empire  state,  swung  loose 
from  party  fealty,  as  regardless  of  the  issues  between  Demo- 
crat and  Republican  as  the  Irish  party  in  Great  Britain  are  of 
the  differences  between  Liberal  and  Tory,  and  looking  to  the 
politicians  as  tools  to  be  used  for  their  end^.  ["Suppose  that, 
under  the  leadership  of  a  man  with  something  like  the  genius  of 
Parnell  for  organization  and  political  strategy,  labor  were  or- 
ganized as  thoroughly  for  political  action  as  it  now  is  for  the 
purpose  of  resisting  the  unjust  exactions  of  employers;  that 
when  thus  massed  into  a  compact  and  disciplined  force  nego- 
tiations were  opened  with  existing  parties,  and  a  full  conces- 
sion of  all  the  demands  of  labor — as  formulated  for  instance 


106  THE  POLITICS  OF  LABOK. 

in  such  a  comprehensive  shape  as  the  platform  of  the  Knights 
of  Labor — were  demanded  as  the  price  of  the  labor  vote- 
Owing  to  the  unfortunate  experience  of  the  past,  it  would  no 
doubt  take  some  time  to  convince  either  party  of  the  sincerity 
of  the  movement,  and  of  the  determination  of  a  sufficient  num- 
ber of  the  workers  to  make  it  really  formidable,  to  stand  by 
their  demands,  j  But  if  organized  labor  stood  firm;  if  it 
showed"ho  disposition  to  break  ranks  and  fall  into  the  party 
traces ;  if  the  same  strictness  of  discipline  and  unanimity  of 
purpose  animating  the  Irish  Nationalists  were  manifested, 
one  party  or  other  would  speedily  show  themselves  anxious 
to  make  terms.  It  is  no  doubt  probable  that  the  pledges  by 
which  they  would  seek  to  secure  an  alliance  with  labor  on  a 
large  scale  for  political  action,  would  be  no  better  observed 
that  many  promises  given  in  the  past  to  conciliate  the  work- 
ing-class element  already  affiliated  with  them.  But  if,  as  soon 
as  the  disposition  to  kick  over  the  ladder  by  which  they  had 
climbed  to  power  were  'fairly  manifested,  the  whole  strength 
of  the  political  labor  organization  were  devoted  to  punishing 
their  treachery  ;  if,  by  independent  action  as  a  compact  force, 
the  Labor  Reformers  voted  their  betrayers  out  of  power  by  a 
significant  and  sweeping  majority,  the  lesson  would  be  as  ef- 
fective and  as  productive  of  practical  results  in  forwarding 
the  cause,  as  that  administered  by  the  Irish  Nationalists  to 
Liberals  and  Tories  in  turn.  If  the  men  who  now  unite  and 
make  sacrifices  and  submit  to  rigid  discipline  for  petty  local 
objects,  small  increases  of  pay,  amelioration  of  unfair  shop 
rules,  and  the  like,  would  but  show  equal  constancy,  and  equal 
determination  in  standing  together  for  comprehensive,  far- 
reaching  objects,  to  be  achieved  by  political  methods,  they 
could  carry  everything  before  them. 

{But  they  wont — not  at  present.  They  are  afraid  it  might 
hurt "  the  party."  So  they  let  the  politicians  use  them  instead 
of  using  the  politicians,  i  Nevertheless  the  leaven  of  political 
thought  is  working,  and  the  example  of  what  a  third  party 
has  accomplished  for  Ireland  will  exercise  a  marked  influence 
on  American  political  methods  and  ideas. 


THE  POLITICS  OF  LABOR.  107 

From  the  parties,  as  at  present  controlled,  labor  has  nothing 
to  expect.  The  American  working-man  has  a  great  horror  of 
"  throwing  away  his  vote,"  as  it  is  absurdly  termed,  by  casting 
it  for  a  cause  that  has  no  chance  of  immediate  success.  He 
would  be  willing  enough  to  join  a  political  Labor  party,  if  he 
thought  it  could  possibly  elect  a  president  in  1888 ;  but  he  has 
no  idea  of  marching  to  certain  defeat  with  a  forlorn  hope, 
even  though  the  attack  may  prepare  the  way  for  a  victory  in 
the  distant  future.  When  present  success  rests  between  one 
of  two  parties  the  "  least-of-two-evils  "  argument,  that  spe: 
cious  plea  of  pessimists  and  trimmers,  appeals  with  almost  ir- 
resistible force  to  minds  not  under  the  sway  of  strong  convic- 
tions. The  temptation  to  vote  for  the  "  best  man "  of  two 
party  hacks  without  an  enlightened  idea  between  them,  or  to 
prefer  this  or  that  party  because  of  old  associations  or  taking 
catchwords  is  well-nigh  irresistible.  It  is  so  easy  to  yield  to 
contagious  enthusiasm,  to  train  with  the  old  crowd,  to  follow 
the  band  and  the  torchlight  procession  ;  so  hard  to  stand 
aloof  and  bear  ridicule  as  a  crank  and  a  visionary.  But  if 
every  Labor  Reformer,  putting  aside  all  these  temptations 
and  excitements,  looked  at  the  question  solely  from  the  stand- 
point of  how  his  action  was  likely  to  affect  the  cause  he  pro- 
fesses to  have  at  heart,  he  would  be  very  apt  to  come  to  the 
conclusion  never  to  cast  a  party  ballot — unless  in  pursuance 
of  some  such  comprehensive  strategic  scheme  as  I  have  out- 
lined. 

Under  existing  conditions,  while  the  claims  of  labor  are 
ignored  as  at  present,  it  is  an  absolute  disadvantage  to  the 
cause  for  working-men  to  vote  for  party  candidates,  because  it 
creates  the  impression  that  Labor  Reformers  are  satisfied  with 
half-measures.  It  would  be  better  to  let  the  public  see  plainly 
that  such  makeshift  legislation  is  regarded  as  inadequate  and 
misleading.  Is  is  better  to  be  unrepresented  than  misrepre- 
sented ;  better  to  have  it  understood  that  no  party  politician 
is  entitled  to  speak  for  labor  than  to  have  some  smooth- 
tongued trimmer  pose  as  one  who  owes  his  election  to  work- 
ing-men's votes. 


108  THE  POLITICS  OF  LABOR. 

In  the  incipient  stages  of  great  reforms  the  ballot  is  of  use 
only  as  a  means  of  giving  expression  to  opinion.  It  is  an 
invaluable  agency  to  force  discussion,  ripen  the  issue,  and 
mark  progress.  In  all  other  respects  just  now  it  is  practically 
useless — that  is,  so  far  as  securing  any  radical  changes  in  the 
wage-system  is  concerned.  We  can  hope  for  no  immediate 
victory.  The  indirect  use  of  the  ballot  to  forward  agitation 
and  mould  public  opinion  has  been  a  frequent  feature  in 
American  politics.  The  early  anti-slavery  agitators  availed 
themselves  of  it.  The  candidatures  of  Gen.  Butler  and 
Governor  St.  John  in  the  Greenback-Labor  and  Prohibition 
interests  in  1884  are  instances  in  point.  Neither  of  these 
candidates  had  the  ghost  of  a  chance.  None  of  their  most 
enthusiastic  supporters  ever  dreamed  that  there  was  even  a 
remote  possibility  of  the  election  of  either  of  them.  They 
were  in  the  field  merely  to  allow  their  respective  supporters  a 
chance  to  stand  up  and  be  counted — as  the  practical  politician 
would  say,  to  "  throw  away  their  votes  "  for  a  principle. 

This  being  the  case,  in  contests  where  there  is  no  possibility 
or  thought  of  success,  where  the  object  of  putting  a  Labor 
Reform  ticket  in  nomination  would  be  merely  to  force  the 
issue  and  give  the  adherents  of  the  cause  an  opportunity  to 
cast  an  honest  ballot,  why  not  vote  directly  for  the  principle  ? 
Why  go  to  the  trouble  of  selecting  candidates,  which  under 
the  circumstances  becomes  a  meaningless  formula  ?  Would  it 
not  serve  every  purpose  to  drop  a  platform  or  a  ticket  with 
the  simple  inscription  "  Labor  Reform,"  or  any  other  explicit 
and  convenient  phrase,  into  the  ballot-box.  It  is  much  easier 
to  agree  on  a  principle  than  on  a  candidate.  A  man  is  sure  to 
have  enemies.  He  has  generally  a  record  which  pre- 
sents many  points  of  attack.  The  selection  of  candidates 
arouses  jealousies  and  creates  divisions.  In  voting  for  a  prin- 
ciple simply  there  is  no  weakening  of  strength  from  these 
causes.  There  is  nothing  to  explain  away  or  apologize  for. 
And  the  moral  effect  upon  parties  and  politicians  of  a  large 
vote  cast  for  the  abstract  principle  of  Labor  Reform,  would 
be  far  greater  than  has  been  produced  by  any  form  of  political 


THE  POLITICS  OF  LABOR.  109 

action  yet  adopted.  Supposing  that,  in  any  important  elec- 
tion, when  the  votes  came  to  be  counted,  it  were  found  that 
there  were  enough  electors  who  had  taken  the  trouble  to  go 
to  the  polls  and  cast  their  votes  for  the  idea,  despite  the  fact 
that  there  was  no  man  in  the  field  to  represent  it,  to  have 
changed  the  result.  Would  not  this  action,  as  to  the  motive 
of  which  no  possible  doubts  could  exist,  which  would  testify 
far  more  strongly  to  the  sincerity  and  earnestness  of  those 
resorting  to  it  than  if  there  were  even  a  remote  possibility  of 
personal  advancement  as  the  result,  have  an  influence  upon 
public  opinion  infinitely  greater  than  could  be  obtained  by  the 
compromises  and  dickerings  by  which  the  "  labor  vote  "  is 
traded  off  for  a  few  minor  nominations  or  a  "  labor  plank  "  in 
the  party  platform  ?  Its  very  novelty  and  boldness — its  unpre- 
cedented defiance  of  the  traditions  of  political  life — its  avow- 
ed abnegation  of  all  hope  of  immediate  personal  triumphs 
and  advantages,  its  deliberate  "throwing  away"  of  the 
valueless  feature  of  the  ballot — that  of  promoting  the  success 
of  one  of  two  corrupt  parties — while  retaining  all  which 
makes  it  really  worth  anything  to  the  believer  in  comprehen- 
sive social  reform — would  force  the  Labor  question  to  the 
front  as  the  main  issue  as  no  other  use  of  the  franchise  could 
possibly  do. 

Let  no  one  underrate  what  has  already  been  achieved  by 
Labor  Reformers  in  politics.  Considering  the  difficulties  un- 
der which  they  have  worked,  the  apathy  and  lack  of  steady 
determination  on  the  part  of  the  bulk  of  the  laboring 
class,  and  the  strength  of  party  predilections  and  politico- 
economical  fallacies,  very  much  has  been  effected,  especially 
in  State  legislation.  The  volume  of  factory  laws,  the  restric- 
tions on  female  and  child  labor,  the  mitigation  of  the  evils  of 
the  convict  and  imported  labor  system,  the  abolition  or  limit- 
ation of  the  truck  system,  the  abrogation  or  modification  of 
mediaeval  conspiracy  laws  preventing  combinations  among 
workers,  and  the  establishment  of  bureaus  of  Labor  Statistics, 
have  been  extremely  beneficial  in  their  results.  Before  labor 
was  as  generally  organized  and  as  fully  cognizant  of  its  rights 


110  THE  POLITICS  OF  LABOS. 

and  disabilities  as  it  now  is,  the  only  available  method  of  pro- 
curing such  ameliorative  measures  was  the  one  hitherto  fol- 
lowed. It  was  right  and  necessary  to  accept  from  one  party 
or  the  other  such  piecemeal  reforms  as  could  be  obtained  in 
return  for  political  support.  But  the  time  is  ripe  for  a  change. 
The  concessions  made  to  Labor  Reform,  important  as  they 
are  in  themselves,  are  slight  as  compared  with  the  increased 
power  of  capitalism. 

The  reforms  thus  far  secured  have  been  directed  towards 
modifying  the  more  obvious  abuses  of  the  system.  They  are 
mere  palliatives — excellent  so  far  as  they  go,  useful  especially 
as  precedents  to  establish  and  extend  the  principle  of  the 
right  and  duty  of  society  to  regulate  industry  in  the  interests 
of  the  whole^eople,  instead  of  permitting  it  to  be  controlled 
by  a  class,  i  But  the  hour  has  arrived  when  educated  and 
united  labor  must  strike  more  directly  at  the  wage-system 
itself;  when  its  political  force,  instead  of  being  divided 
between  parties,  each  of  which  seeks  to  offset  enormous  priv- 
ileges to  monopoly  by  niggardly  concessions  to  labor,  must 
be  consolidated  into  a  people's  party.  I 

Existing  political  parties  are  crystallized  around  dead  issues 
and  old-time  reminiscences  of  the  slavery  and  rebellion  eras. 
They  trim  and  fence  not  merely  on  the  Labor  problem,  but 
on  all  live  and  important  questions.  A  modern  political  plat- 
form is  a  marvel  of  disingenuous  ingenuity.  It  has  a  verbal 
bait  for  every  sort  of  political  loose  fish.  Instead  of  being 
the  clear  expression  of  the  views  and  aims  of  men  who  agree 
on  certain  principles,  it  is  the  utterance  of  those  who  agree 
on  nothing  except  the  desirability  of  obtaining  office — and  to 
that  end  wish  to  conciliate  as  many  opposing  classes,  interests, 
and  sections  as  possible,  without  offending  any.  Consequently 
it  is  framed  to  please  prohibitionists,  while  convincing  the 
liquor-seller  that  no  harm  is  intended  to  him  ;  to  placate  the 
tariff  reformer,  while  allaying  the  fears  of  the  protectionist ;  to 
satisfy  alike  the  bi-metallist  and  the  believer  in  the  gold 
standard  of  the  currency;  and  to  promise  concessions  to  labor 
without  alarming  the  capitalist.  (No  matter  what  pledges 


THE  POLITICS  OF  LABOR.  JJ  j 

may  be  made  in  the  direction  of  Labor  Reform,  the  interests 
of  those  who,  by  virtue  of  their  wealth  and  social  position  are 
entrusted  with  party  leadership  and  put  forward  for  the  more 
important  office,  are  always  a  guarantee  that  the  claims  of 
the  money  power  will  be  the  supreme  consideration^ 

Instead  of  being  thus  treated  as  a  side-issue,  Labor  Reform 
must  be  the  main  issue. 

Commissioner  Arthur  T.  Hadley,  of  the  Connecticut  Bu- 
reau of  Labor  Statistics,  begins  his  admirable  report  for  1885 
with  the  following  pregnant  assertion : 

"  The  relations  between  labor  and  capital  cannot  be  treated  as  a  mere 
matter  of  private  business,  but  involve  social  and  political  questions. 
This  fact  is  becomi»§-£]£arer  every  day,  whether  we  like  it  or  not.  The 
state  of  things  is  this.  |  The  men  who  do  the  most  physical  work,  as  a 
class,  seem  to  have  the  least  to  show  for  it.  Their  wages  are  often 
barely  sufficient  to  meet  the  expenses  of  living.  They  sometimes  can- 
not get  work  at  all ;  at  best  they  are  working  for  others  with  little  inde- 
pendence of  action,  and  often  with  little  hope  of  anything  better^  In 
their  life,  their  work,  and  their  relations  to  their  employers,  evils  and 
abuses  have  arisen  which  it  seems  impossible  for  any  individual  to  pre- 
vent; while  the  attempt  to  remedy  them  by  organized  action  too  often 
proves  worse  than  useless.  In  this  difficulty  there  is  a  demand  for  public 
investigation  arid  for  legislative  interference." 

Now,  if  the  Labor  problem  be  a  political  question  at  all,  it 
is  the  supreme  and  overshadowing  issue.  If  the  right  and  the 
duty  of  State  interference  to  remedy  evils  and  abuses  be  ad- 
mitted— and  at  this  stage  of  the  discussion  there  are  few  who 
can  consistently  deny  it — it  logically  follows  that  this  inter- 
ference cannot  be  limited  in  extent  or  direction  so  long  as 
these  remediable  abuses  continue.  In  the  Labor  Bureaus,  in 
the  measures  restricting  the  right  of  private  contract,  in 
whatever  of  regulative  legislation  has  already  been  secured, 
we  have  the  starting  point  of  a  new  departure — the  germs  of 
the  social  evolution. 

To  make  Labor  Reform  the  supreme  issue — the  one  import-: 
ant  end  and  aim  of  political  struggle  with  the  toiling  millions, 
for  which  they  are  ready  to  sacrifice  every  other  consideration 
— is  the  only  way  by  which  the  power  of  capitalism  buttressed 
by  partyism  can  be  overthrown. 


112  THE  POLITICS  OF  LABOR. 

CHAPTER  VI. 

STEPPING    STONES. 

As  between  infancy  and  maturity  there  is  no  short-cut  by  which 
there  may  be  avoided  the  tedious  process  of  growth  and  development 
thro-ugh  insensible  increments;  so  there  is  no  way  from  the  lower  forms 
of  social  life  to  the  higher,  but  one  passing  through  small  successive 
modifications.  If  we  contemplate  the  order  of  nature,  we  see  that  every- 
where vast  results  are  brought  about  by  accumulations  of  minute 
actions. 

HERBERT  SPENCER. 

THE  necessity  of  a  gradual  change  from  the  system  of  cap- 
italistic rule  and  wage  servitude  to  the  control  by  society  of 
the  means  of  production  and  of  all  distribution  of  the  gains  of 
industry  on  the  basis  of  labor-value  being  admitted,  what  are 
the  first  practical  steps  to  be  taken  to  forward  this  change  ? 
In  the  political  field,  simply  to  do  the  work  that  lies  nearest  to 
hand  in  the  line  previously  indicated  of  enlarging  the  func- 
tions of  government  and  increasing  the  control  exercised  by 
the  citizens  over  the  governing  body.  The  most  obvious  and 
essential  reform  to  be  accomplished  in  the  near  future  is  to 
reclaim  for  the  government  those  powers  which  have  been 
foolishly  or  corruptly  granted  to  private  corporations  fulfil- 
ling public  functions. 

Railroads,  telegraphs,  telephones,  banks,  insurance  com- 
panies, and  the  like  were  called  into  being  by  special  enact- 
ment. The  corporations  which  conduct  these  and  similar 
enterprises  stand  in  a  very  different  position  to  individual 
capitalists.  But  for  the  powers  and  privileges  granted  them 
by  the  people's  representatives,  conferring  upon  them  quasi- 
public  trusts,  they  could  have  had  no  existence.  They  are 
creations  of  the  law.  Those  trusts  having  been  violated,  and 
the  powers  conferred  for  the  public  benefit  having  been  pros- 
tituted to  selfish  ends,  the  people  have  the  right  to  abrogate 
them,  and  to  resume  those  functions,  the  exercise  of  which  by 
private  individuals  has  been  the  most  fertile  source  of  every 
species  of  political  corruption  and  financial  dishonesty. 


THE  POLITICS  OF  LABOR.  113 

The  modern  corporation  occupies  a  wholly  anomalous  posi- 
tion. It  is  virtually  a  portion  of  the  real  "  government "  of 
the  country.  It  exercises  public  functions,  and  is  obliged  to 
resort  to  the  government  to  obtain  its  franchises  and  powers  ; 
but  it  is  irresponsible  to  the  public,  and  there  is  no  adequate 
means  of  holding  it  to  account  for  the  exercise  of  its  despotic 
sway.  No  system  could  be  better  devised  to  promote  corrup- 
tion, and  to  ensure  the  betrayal  of  the  people  by  their  repre- 
sentatives than  the  relations  between  the  corporations  and 
the  government.  In  the  first  place,  the  whole  of  the  immense 
transportation,  money-issuing,  and  electric-communication 
systems  of  the  country,  on  the  management  of  which  every 
branch  of  industry  and  trade  is  dependent,  is  entrusted  to  the 
hands  of  bodies  composed  of  individuals  of  large  wealth.  They 
are  dependent  for  their  corporate  existence,  and  the  enormous 
facilities  of  levying  tribute  upon  industry  which  the  possession 
of  corporate  privileges  confers,  upon  the  assent  of  the  people's 
representatives.  As  new  opportunities  present  themselves, 
rings  and  syndicates  for  the  procurement  of  charter-powers 
are  organized.  Their  interests  often  clash  with  those  of 
existing  corporations  or  other  applicants.  Rival  sets  of  rail- 
road or  telegraph  magnates,  each  seeking  to  promote  its  own 
aims  or  cripple  its  rival,  having  immense  resources  at  their 
command,  resort  to  every  means  of  political  intrigue  and  cor- 
ruption to  secure  favorable  consideration  of  their  claims. 
They  buy  legislators  and  judges  like  cattle.  They  enter  the 
political  field,  and  throw  their  influence  into  the  wavering 
balance  of  party.  There  is  no  cause  which  has  tended  more 
to  debauch  American  politicians  than  the  struggle  of  corpora- 
tions, actual  or  prospective,  for  the  immensely  valuable  privi- 
leges which  are  thus  trafficked  in  by  public  men,  in  return  for 
party  advantage  or  personal  emolument — no  class  of  legisla- 
tion which  has  been  anything  like  so  fatal  to  previously  fair 
reputations  as  that  dealing  with  corporate  interests. 

Apart  from  gross  cases  of  positive  bribery,  such  as  were 
isclosed  in   connection  with  the  Credit   Mobilier  and  Pan- 
Electric  telephone  scandals,  where 


114  THE  POLITICS  OF  LABOB. 

distributed  gratuitously  in  return  for  political  influence,  the 
indirect  corruption  resulting  from  the  system  is  an  evil  of  far 
greater  magnitude.  The  prominent  men  in  politics  being 
mostly  wealthy,  and  having  extensive  business  interests,  are 
frequently  holders  of  large  amounts  of  stock  in  corporations, 
acquired  before  they  accepted  office  without  a  thought  of  its 
being  other  than  a  legitimate  investment.  But  how  can  they 
be  expected  to  legislate  in  the  public  interest,  or  give  unbiased 
decisions  upon  questions  affecting  the  companies  in  which 
they  are  stockholders  ?  Even  if  the  particular  corporations  are 
not  concerned,  the  heavy  personal  interest  which  a  very  large 
number  of  men  in  representative  positions  have  in  the  claims 
of  corporations  renders  it  impossible  to  expect  that  they 
will  be  vigilant  guardians  of  the  rights  of  the  people.  While 
these  immense  interests  are  permitted  to  exist  apart  from 
government,  irresponsible  in  the  exercise  of  their  power, 
having  their  ramifications  throughout  the  business  and  politi- 
cal circles  from  which  public  officials  are  drawn,  and  continu- 
ally dependent  for  public  favors  upon  the  very  class  of  men 
who  in  their  private  capacity  are  concerned  in  their  mainte- 
nance, corruption  in  its  most  insidious  form  will  be  the  inevit- 
able result.  It  is  inherent  in  the  system. 

There  is  a  great  deal  of  force  in  the  remarks  of  Gen.  Butler, 
who,  in  an  interview  published  in  the  New  York  Herald  of 
February  5th,  1886  regarding  the  Pan  Electric  Telephone  ex- 
pressed himself  as  follows : 

"  Is  a  senator  of  the  United  States  to  have  no  other  business  rela- 
tions ?  A  large  proportion  of  the  senators  are  very  large  representatives 
of  business  wealth.  They  are  elected  with  such  business  complications, 
and  they  must  vote  in  regard  to  legislation  which  affects  their  business 
interests.  When  I  was  in  congress  a  majority  of  the  house  was  com- 
posed of  officers  and  stockholders  of  national  banks,  and  upon  the  oc- 
casion of  a  vote  being  taken  affecting  the  banks,  I  called  the  Speaker's 
attention  to  the  rule  of  the  house  that  no  man  should  vote  upon  a  matter 
in  which  he  was  personally  interested,  but  it  was  ruled  that  as  they  were 
only  interested  in  the  business  of  the  country,  they  must  legislate  con- 
cerning the  business  of  the  country  ;  they  must  vote  in  regard  to  it,  al- 
though their  votes  might  make  thousands  of  dollars'  difference,  to 
them  individually," 


THE  POLITICS  Off  LABOR.  115 

When  the  great  majority  of  public  men,  owing  to  their  busi- 
ness relations,  are  thus  bribed  in  advance  to  support  the 
insatiable  claims  of  monopolies  of  all  soils,  how  is  it  possible 
to  expect  that  the  public  interest  will  be  fairly  considered  ? 
The  cabinet-minister,  senator  or  congressman  who  is  a  stock- 
holder in  a  national  bank,  railroad  or  telegraph  company,  be 
his  intentions  ever  so  honest,  is  in  a  false  position.  On  the 
one  hand,  the  natural  bias  of  personal  interest  continually 
prompts  him  to  favor  legislation  looking  to  the  aggrandizement 
and  strengthening  of  monopolies  ;  on  the  other,  as  a  representa- 
tive of  the  people,  it  is  his  duty  to  prevent  the  encroachments 
of  corporations.  A  few  may  be  public-spirited  enough  and 
sufficiently  mindful  of  their  obligations  to  act  independently 
of  pecuniary  considerations,  but  all  history  shows  that  no 
class  of  men  have  ever  voluntarily  used  their  power  against 
their  own  interests.  It  was  not  slaveholders  that  abolished 
slavery,  or  the  owners  of  Irish  estates  who  passed  the  Land 
Act.  Gen.  Butler's  observation  gives  the  key  to  the  situation. 
Monopolies  grow  yearly  in  power,  and  strengthen  their  grasp 
upon  the  country  because  the  people  elect  to  office  men  who 
are  identified  with  them  by  "  business  complications,"  who 
must  either  vote  against  their  personal  advantage  or  betray 
the  trust  reposed  in  them. 

Americans  have  been  in  the  habit  of  congratulating  them- 
selves that  primogeniture  and  entail  do  not  exist  on  this  con- 
tinent, that  because  the  system  of  hereditary  estates  descend- 
ing in  unbroken  bulk  from  father  to  son,  generation  after  gene- 
ration, has  not  been  as  yet  established,  we  are  therefore  free  from 
the  great  cause  of  the  disparity  of  social  conditions  existing  in 
England.  It  is  a  shallow  and  short-sighted  conclusion.  Though 
entail,  primogeniture,  settlements,  tying  up  estates  for  a  long 
period  of  years,  and  other  devices  for  enabling  dead  men  to  con- 
trol the  interests  of  the  living  have  not  been  introduced  into 
America,  a  yet  more  formidable  power  for  the  accumulation 
of  capital  to  be  wielded  by  the  hands  of  the  few  as  an  instru- 
ment of  oppression,  has  been  devised  in  the  corporation.  Men 
may  die  but  the  corporation  outlives  them.  It  concentrates 


116  THE  POLITICS  OF  LA&Oft. 

amounts  of  wealth,  which  if  scattered  would  have  iittie  power 
for  evil  and  places  them  at  the  disposal  of  ambitious  money 
and  railroad  kings.  When  corporations  were  few  and  largely 
of  a  speculative  character  large  fortunes  were  precarious- 
They  were  apt  to  get  dispersed,  if  not  during  the  lifetime  of 
the  accumulator  at  his  death,  But  the  firm  establishment  of 
the  corporation  system  has  changed  all  that.  Money  invested 
in  the  stocks  and  bonds  of  solvent  companies  does  not  disap- 
pear in  a  night,  like  the  unsubstantial  investments  of  the 
gambler  on  margins.  Any  capitalist  of  ordinary  discretion 
can  so  place  his  money  that  it  will  be  absolutely  safe  so  long 
as  the  institutions  of  the  country  endure,  and  go  on  indefi- 
nitely increasing  in  amount  and  controlling  influence.  The 
Vanderbilt  fortune  is  now  intact  in  the  hands  of  the  third 
generation,  and  by  the  will  of  the  lately  deceased  millionaire, 
all  the  railroad  stocks  are  to  be  retained  in  bulk.  The  profits 
only  will  be  divided,  while  the  capital  itself  as  a  power  in  the 
railroad  and  financial  world  is  unbroken. 

According  to  "Poor's  Manual  of  Railroads"  for  1885,  the 
share  capital  of  the  railroad  companies  amounts  to  $3,762, 
616,  686,  and  the  funded  debt  to  $3,669,115,772,  making  a 
total  of  $7,431,732,458,  of  "  entailed "  capital,  so  to  speak 
in  this  one  department  of  monopoly.  According  to  the  census 
of  1880  the  estimated  valuation  of  the  farms  in  the  United 
States  is  $10,197,000,000. 

If  by  any  process  of  law  or  sudden  change  in  the  working 
of  our  institutions  three-quarters  of  the  farm  property  of  the 
country  were  tied  up  by  the  English  system  of  entail  and 
primogeniture  so  that  the  land  could  not  be  sold,  seized  for 
debt,  bequeathed  or  otherwise  disposed  of,  but  must  be  kept 
intact  and  undivided  in  the  families  of  the  present  possessors, 
the  danger  to  free,  popular  government  would  at  once  be 
apprehended.  Every  American  would  realize  that  such  a 
system  would  before  long  be  fatal  to  the  spirit  if  not  to  the 
semblance  of  political  equality.  And  yet,  as  the  holders  of 
the  entailed  farms  would  constitute  a  numerous,  widely- 
scattered  class  identified  with  popular  interests,  the  peril 


THE  POLITICS  OF  LABOR.  117 

would  not  be  nearly  so  great  as  arises  from  the  concentration 
in  the  hands  of  a  very  few  men  of  the  enormous  powers 
represented  by  railroad  capital.  It  is  no  argument  to  the 
contrary  to  point  to  merely  personal  changes  in  the  manage- 
ment of  corporations.  It  is  true  that  in  the  despotisms  of 
corporation  rule  as  in  those  of  arbitrary  government  "Amu- 
rath  to  Amurath  succeeds."  Yanderbilt  II.  in  the  course  of 
nature  gives  place  to  Yanderbilt  III.  Stocks  and  bonds  may 
pass  from  one  holder  to  another,  one  great  railroad  magnate 
may  be  overthrown  by  a  combination  among  his  rivals,  and  a 
sudden  transfer  of  the  balance  of  power  to  a  hostile  syndicate ; 
but  all  such  merely  individual  conflicts  and  changes  affecting 
the  depositaries  of  power  in  no  respect  mitigate  the  injurious 
exercise  of  the  power  itself;  in  no  way  decrease  the  peril  to 
liberty  from  the  existence  of  the  concentrated  and  increasing 
control  of  public  functions  by  a  very  small  number  of  self-in- 
terested, irresponsible  persons. 

"  When  we  want  to  drain  a  marsh  we  do  not  take  the  votes 
of  the  frogs,"  says  a  French  proverb.  The  great  cause  why 
the  marshes  of  monopoly  have  been  so  long  left  to  poison  with 
their  malaria  the  public  life  of  the  nation  is,  that  we  not  only 
take  the  .votes  of  the  frogs,  but  leave  the  whole  matter  to  their 
decision.  It  is  a  political  truism  which  no  one  thinks  of  dis- 
puting, that  wealth  is  the  first  requisite  for  election  to  the 
United  States  Senate.  Chosen  for  their  wealth,  and  often  by 
their  wealth,  it  is  not  surprising  that  the  members  of  this 
club  of  millionaires  use  their  political  power  principally  as  a 
means  of  strengthening  their  monopoly  power.  As  Buckle 
truly  says  in  his  "History  of  Civilization,"  "  There  is  but  one 
protection  against  the  tyranny  of  any  class,  and  that  is  to  give 
that  class  very  little  power.  Whatever  the  pretensions  of 
any  body  of  men  may  be,  however  smooth  their  language 
and  however  plausible  their  claims,  they  are  sure  to  abuse 
power  if  much  of  it  is  conferred  on  them.  The  entire  history 
of  the  world  affords  no  instance  to  the  contrary." 

During  the  civil  service  reform  movement  an  expression 
much  in  vogue  as  characterizing  the  opponents  of  the  mea- 


118  THE  POLITICS  OF  LABOR. 

sure  was,  that  they  were  "  part  of  the  thing  to  be  reformed." 
It  is  just  so  with  the  men  who,  committed  beforehand  to  the 
interests  of  monopoly,  fill  not  merely  the  Senate,  but  the 
popular  branch  of  the  national  legislature,  the  high  executive 
offices,  the  judiciary,  and  the  state  legislatures.  They  are  a 
part  of  the  thing  to  be  reformed. 

We  talk  of  the  "  abuses  "  and  "  evils  "  of  monopoly.  The 
whole  system  is  one  gigantic  abuse.  It  is  irresponsible  govern- 
ment, it  is  arbitrary  power,  it  is  taxation  without  representa- 
tion. Nay,  it  is  worse  than  these  in  their  naked  and  undis- 
guised form,  because  it  co-exists  with  free  institutions  and  re- 
acting upon  them,  tends  continually  to  debauch  the  character 
of  public  men  and  pervert  the  machinery  of  democratic  gov- 
ernment into  the  instrument  of  spoliation  and  oppression. 
Under  an  honest  despotism  public  officials  may  be  honorable 
and  high-minded  men.  Under  the  hybrid  or  double-headed 
system  of  popular  government,  limited  in  its  scope,  side  by 
side  with  the  monopoly  government,  dependent  upon  it  for 
unjust  privileges,  the  prevalent  type  of  the  successful  politi- 
cian is  the  shrewd  and  unscrupulous  trafficker  in  votes  and 
subsidies,  the  betrayer  of  the  people's  rights  for  his  personal 
enrichment. 

The  only  way  to  abolish  the  "  abuses  "  of  monopoly  is  the 
way  in  which  the  "  abuses  "  of  personal  rule,  chattel  slavery, 
and  piracy  have  been  abolished — by  abolishing  the  system 
itself. 

Instead  of  granting  charters  and  franchises  to  private  in- 
dividuals, enabling  them  to  exercise  functions  which  are  so 
far  public  in  their  character,  that  without  the  express  sanc- 
tion of  the  state  they  could  not  be  undertaken,  the  govern- 
ment should  resume  their  powers  and  conduct  such  enter- 
prises as  banks,  railroads,  telegraphs,  and  telephones  as  re- 
cognized public  interest,  and  legitimate  departments  of  the 
sphere  of  administration.  If,  in  order  to  initiate  any  enter- 
prise, it  is  requisite  to  apply  to  the  government  for  the  granting 
of  special  privileges  and  prerogatives  not  otherwise  attainable 
by  individuals  or  combinations,  it  is  a  sure  indication  that  the 


THE  POLITICS  OF  LABOR.  119 

undertaking  is  of  a  character  that  ought  properly  to  be  carried 
on  by  the  whole  people  in  their  own  interests,  and  not  by  pri- 
vate individuals  for  personal  gain. 

But  in  order  to  take  even  the  first  steps  in  this  direction, 
we  need  such  a  radical  change  in  public  opinion  that  wealth 
and  social  position,  instead  of  being  generally  regarded  as 
desirable  qualifications  in  a  candidate  for  public  office,  must 
be  looked  upon  as  a  strong  prima  facie  cause  for  distrusting 
and  rejecting  him.  The  slavish  adulation  of  money  which 
permeates  every  fiber  of  our  social  and  public  life,  which 
dominates  the  party  caucus  and  convention,  and  elevates  to 
the  con  trolling  position  men  whose  selfish  instincts  and  acquis- 
itive faculties  are  their  only  claims  to  consideration  inter- 
poses an  insuperable  obstacle  to  every  proposition  for  indus- 
trial reform  at  the  outset.  Just  in  proportion  as  wage-workers 
allow  themselves  to  be  carried  away  by  the  false  estimate  of 
men's  worth,  and  join  in  paying  the  tribute  of  servile  souls 
and  beclouded  minds  to  the  owners  of  the  money  bags,  do 
they  help  to  rivet  the  chains  of  industrial  serfdom  on  their 
own  necks.  If  they  will  help  to  elect  men  to  the  state  legis- 
latures and  to  Congress  because  they  are  rich,  it  is  absurd  to 
expect  that  the  latter  will  use  their  influence  as  politicians  to 
overthrow  or  weaken  their  power  as  monopolists.  In  sup- 
porting the  candidate  with  a  "  bar'l,"  the  people  vote  for 
their  own  enslavement.  Men  with  "  bar'ls  "  may  empty  them 
with  lavish  hand  to  obtain  political  positions,  but  it  is  always 
in  the  hope  of  refilling  them  again  and  again  at  the  people's 
expense.  Before  monopoly  can  be  reformed  out  of  existence, 
those  who  profit  by  it  must  be  voted  out  of  public  life. 

The  advantage  of  the  nationalization  of  the  means  of  transit 
and  communication  are  so  manifest  that  only  the  antagonistic 
self-interest  of  the  wealthy  politicians  and  the  false  public 
opinion  created  by  the  influence  of  seven  thousand  millions  of 
capital  through  a  hireling  press  could  have  prevented  its  be- 
ing generally  recognized.  All  competition  would  cease.  The 
vast  amount  of  waste  and  loss  entailed  by  the  construction 
of  unnecessary  lines  of  railroad  and  electric  communication 


120  THE  POLITICS  OF  LABOR. 

would  be  saved.  There  would  be  no  more  probability  of  the 
useless  expenditure  of  money  and  labor  in  building  two  or 
three  railway-lines  between  the  same  points  than  there  now 
is  of  the  construction  of  superfluous  wagon  roads.  Were  any 
municipality  to  vote  away  money  for  the  building  of  an  ordi-' 
nary  highway  running  parallel  to  one  already  existing  and 
sufficient  for  the  accommodation  of  travel,  it  would  be  regarded 
as  an  utterly  unjustifiable  and  senseless  waste  of  the  public 
funds.  The  people  would  stand  amazed  at  the  folly  of  any 
set  of  men  who,  whether  through  ignorance,  indifference,  or 
venality,  could  sanction  such  a  project.  Yet  so  warped  have 
men's  judgments  become  by  the  undue  exaltation  of  private 
enterprise  that  the  syndicate  of  speculators  who  go  to  the  leg- 
islature or  congress  and  obtain  a  public  franchise  endowing 
them  with  what  are  virtually  public  trusts  to  run  competing 
railway  or  telegraph  lines  involving  an  enormous  needless  out- 
lay are  regarded  with  no  sort  of  disfavor  and  probably  lauded 
as  benefactors. 

The  nationalization  of  railroads,  telegraphs,  and  similar 
enterprises  would  place  the  working  employes  in  a  far  better 
position  that  at  present.  Instead  of  being  subject  to  the 
fluctuations  of  the  labor  market,  liable  to  have  their  wages 
reduced  in  order  that  the  monopolies  may  pay  dividends  and 
to  be  treated  as  human  machines,  the  working-force  of  rail- 
way or  telegraph  lines  owned  and  managed  by  the  govern- 
ment would  be  able  to  bring  their  political  power  to  bear,  to 
secure  a  just  scale  of  wages  and  equitable  treatment. 

No  government  dare  deal  with  its  employes  as  W.  H.  Van- 
derbilt  did  with  his  wage-slaves  during  the  freight-handlers' 
strike  at  New  York  and  other  Eastern  cities,  or  as  Jay  Gould 
did  with  the  telegraphers,  or  more  recently  with  the  employes 
on  his  South- Western  roads.  No  political  party  would  ven- 
ture to  justify  the  "  iron  law  of  wages  "  in  relation  to  govern- 
ment employes.  The  politico-economical  doctrine  that  labor 
is  a  commodity  has  been  practically  repudiated  by  the  govern- 
ment. The  wages  of  civil  service  employes  are  not  fixed  by 
competition — do  not  fluctuate  with  the  state  of  the  labor- 


THE  POLITICS  OF  LABO&.  121 

market,  but,  so  far  at  least  as  the  lower  grades  of  the  service 
are  concerned,  are  arranged  on  the  principle  of  paying  some- 
thing like  the  value  of  the  labor  performed.  That  some  of 
the  higher  officials  are  paid  extravagantly  high  rates,  owing  to 
the  prevalent  over-estimate  of  the  value  of  executive  ability 
as  compared  with  ordinary  work,  is  no  valid  argument  against 
the  change,  since  the  same  conditions  now  prevail  in  the  com- 
mercial world.  The  high  salaries  or  emoluments  of  post-mas- 
ters and  collectors  of  customs  in  the  principal  cities  are  paral- 
leled by  the  scale  of  remuneration  of  railroad,  bank,  and  insur- 
ance officials  and  the  superintendents  of  large  manufacturing 
and  commercial  businesses.  The  cause  and  the  justification 
of  high  salaries  is  the  competitive  system  under  which  it  is 
essential  to  the  success  of  business  undertakings  to  secure  at 
any  cost  alert,  energetic,  and  keen-witted  men  of  organizing 
capacity,  diplomatic  tact,  and  the  qualities  of  judgment  and 
resolution  which  characterize  the  capable  general  of  an  army. 
These  qualifications  of  business  leadership,  in  their  highest 
form  and  most  perfect  combination,  are  so  much  in  demand, 
because  of  the  necessity  which  the  enterprises  concerned  are 
under  of  fighting  each  other.  The  energies  and  talents  which 
command  so  high  a  recompense  are  mainly  devoted,  not  in 
any  direction  which  benefits  the  public,  but  to  outwitting  and 
circumventing  rivals.  In  short,  the  tendency  of  the  competi- 
tive system  and  the  survival  of  the  fittest  is  to  evolve  a  class 
and  kind  of  capacity,  the  social  value  of  which  is  very  slight, 
while  its  value  to  the  individual  or  combination  in  whose 
service  it  is  employed  is  very  great.  This  kind  of  capacity 
may  be  styled  "  business  generalship."  Now  this  fitness  for 
leadership  in  commercial  and  industrial  war  commands  a  high 
price,  just  as  the  rare  combination  of  qualities  which  consti- 
tute the  successful  military  commander  does  in  time  of  war 
or  in  the  presence  of  conditions  which  render  war  probable. 
But  as  in  an  era  of  assured  peace  the  estimation  set  upon  the 
services  of  the  military  leader  would  decline,  so,  as  the  system 
of  government  ownership  became  substituted  for  that  of 
monopoly,  and  the  industrial  war  of  competition  died  out,  the 


122  THE  POLITICS  OF  LABOK. 

services  of  the  Napoleons  of  railways  and  finance  would  de- 
preciate. 

High  salaries  for  the  class  of  positions  in  the  public  service 
requiring  a  measure  of  organizing  talent  and  responsibility  of 
superintendence  are  directly  traceable  to  the  demand  which 
exists  in  all  departments  of  business  for  men  of  unusual  tact, 
resource,  and  executive  ability  to  be  utilized  mainly  in  waste, 
ful  and  injurious  struggles  for  supremacy  between  conflicting 
interests.  The  purely  adventitious  value  thus  imparted  to 
commercial  generalship  is  responsible  for  the  unjust  difference 
in  the  salaries  of  officials  and  the  unduly  high  estimate  placed 
on  the  class  of  talent  supposed  to  be  possessed  by  those 
chosen  for  leading  administrative  positions.  When  the  com- 
petitive features  disappear,  mere  capacity  for  organization  and 
acquaintance  with  business  methods,  which  will  be  all  that  is 
requisite,  can  readily  be  procured  at  a  much  less  exorbitant 
rate.  There  will  be  no  need  to  pay  responsible  administra- 
tive officials  twenty,  fifty,  or  a  hundred  times  as  much  as  the 
lower  grade  of  public  employes. 

When  .once  the  nation  has  assumed  the  ownership  of  the 
means  of  transit  and  communication  and  the  duties  of  a  public 
character  now  performed  by  other  corporations,  the  sphere  of 
.government  will  be  rapidly  widened  and  extended.  Many 
other  enterprises  are  so  closely  bound  up  and  identified  with 
these  that  the  necessity  of  embracing  them  in  the  system  of 
state  ownership  will  follow  as  a  matter  of  course.  Coal  and 
other  mines,  for  instance,  are  largely  owned  and  operated  in 
connection  with  railroads,  and  the  monopoly  system  results  in 
combinations  by  which  the  supply  of  fuel  is  restricted  and  the 
price  kept  up  for  the  benefit  of  the  railway  corporations.  If 
once  the  railways  were  expropriated,  a  demand  for  the  gov- 
ernment ownership  of  all  mines  owned  and  operated  by  rail- 
road companies  would  naturally  follow.  The  immense  resources 
of  mineral  wealth  which  have  been  alienated  by  faithless  and 
corrupt  guardians  of  the-  public  welfare,  owing  to  the  apathy 
of  the  people,  temporarily  dazed  and  bewildered  by  the 
changes  in  the  industrial  system,  and  unable  to  forecast  the 


THE  POLITICS  OF  LABOR.  123 

results  of  a  delusive  "  progress,"  must  be  reclaimed  by  the 
government,  and  worked  in  the  public  interest.  Such  mono- 
polies as  the  Standard  Oil  Company  and  the  natural  gas  cor- 
porations will  be  abolished,  and  the  supplies  of  these  free 
gifts  of  nature  regulated  by  the  government,  instead  of  being 
made  a  means  of  extortion. 

Following  up  the  idea  of  the  gradual  extension  of  the  func- 
tions of  the  State,  the  next  step  would  naturally  be  to  national- 
ize those  departments  of  industry  closely  connected  and  inter- 
woven with  the  systems  brought  under  government  control. 
Grain  elevators,  wharves,  warehouses,  express  companies, 
steamboat  lines,  and  other  undertakings  dependent  upon  rail- 
road traffic  would  be  absorbed^  Then  would  follow  the  exten- 
sive branches  of  manufacture  which  supply  plant  for  the  rail- 
road and  telegraph  lines,  such  as  steel  and  iron  works,  car 
and  locomotive  factories,  telegraph,  instrument  manufactories, 
and  the  like.  The  printing,  binding,  and  engraving  offices 
which  furnish  the  supplies  of  stationery  consumed  in  connec- 
tion with  the  departments  of  traffic  and  communication  would 
also  come  under  government  ownership.  In  short,  the  circle 
would  continually  and  rapidly  widen.  The  organization  of 
modern  commerce  and  industry  is  so  complete,  and  the  differ- 
ent departments  are  sodependent  on  each  other,  that  every 
fresh  extension  of  the  sphere  of  government  control  would  sug- 
gest and  justify  a  further  inclusion  of  some  similar  or  closely 
allied  industry.  The  economy  of  forces,  owing  to  the  absence  of 
competition,  and  the  better  condition  of  the  laborers  in  gov- 
ernment employ  as  compared  with  those  serving  individ- 
ual capitalists  would  popularize  the  change  among  the 
working-class,  and  petitions  and  movements  in  favor  of 
fresh  expropriations  would  give  an  impetus  to  the  general 
tendency  in  favor  of  state-controflcd  co-operation  which 
nothing  could  withstand.  In  a  hundred  directions  the 
opportunities  for  converting  private  into  public  enter- 
prises would  be  seen  and  sought  for.  Simultaneously 
with  the  movement  for  nationalizing  the  larger  monopolies 
and  t-heir  associated  and  dependent  industries,  the  same  pro* 


124  THE  POLITICS  OF  LABOR. 

cess  would  be  going  on  locally  by  the  assertion  of  the  rights 
of  the  individual  states  and  municipalities  to  own  and  direct 
the  smaller  enterprises  of  a  public  character.  Already  there 
is  a  strongly  developed  feeling  among  Labor  Reformers 
against  the  government  and  municipal  contract  system.  It 
puts  a  premium  upon  the  employment  of  cheap  labor  and  gives 
the  unfair  and  grinding  employer  an  advantage  in  competing 
for  public  work.  All  that  the  body  awarding  a  contract  looks 
to  is  securing  cheapness  in  construction,  and  in  place  of  the 
interests  of  labor  being  secured  by  stipulations  providing  for 
the  payment  of  fair  wages  the  contractor  is  left  free  to  ob- 
tain his  labor  on  the  best  terms  he  can.  If  he  can  procure 
cheap,  non-union,  convict  or  foreign  labor  in  sufficient  quan- 
tities, he  is  enabled  to  underbid  his  rivals  who  may  be  willing 
to  pay  the  current  rate  of  wages.  Thus  the  system  becomes 
an  engine  of  oppression  and  the  means  of  keeping  the  scale 
of  wages  at  a  low  level.  It  is  grossly  unfair  that  in  under- 
taking work  for  which  the  whole  community  is  taxed,  the 
laborer  paying  in  greater  proportion  to  his  means  than  those 
of  any  other  class,  the  rights  of  labor  should  be  so  conspic- 
uously ignored  as  they  have  been. 

Commissioner  Arthur  T.  Hadley,  in  his  report  of  the  Connec- 
ticut Bureau  of  Statistics  for  1885,  strongly  condemns  the 
contract  system  in  factories  in  the  following  terms  : — 

"  A  manufacturer  employs,  let  us  say,  a  thousand  hands  in  a  large 
number  of  different  rooms.  He  cannot,  of  course,  come  in  direct  personal 
contact  with  the  whole  number.  Paying  by  the  piece  he  is  able  to  give 
a  stimulus  to  each  individual  laborer  to  do  his  best.  But  this  does  not 
suffice  to  insure  their  work  being  organized  and  directed  in  the  best 
manner.  To  remedy  this  he  says  to  the  foreman  of  a  room,  '  I  will  give 
you  a  certain  gross  sum  for  a  certain  amount  of  work  to  be  performed 
in  your  room.  Make  what  terms  you  can  with  the  workmen,  I  will  pay 
their  wages;  and  your  profit  will  be  the  difference  between  the  amount 
paid  in  wages  and  the  gross  sum  offered. ' 

"  Under  this  system  the  owner  has  to  furnish  the  capital  and  pay  the 
workmen.  The  contractor  makes  the  arrangements  with  the  workmen, 
and  in  supervising  their  work  has  every  interest  to  see  that  everything 
is  done  as  economically  as  possible.  The  great  advantage  of  the  system 
|3  the  stimulus  which  it  gives  the  foreman  to  become  a  contractor,  Jt 


THE  POLITICS  OF  LABOR.  125 

enables  a  man  without  capital  to  grow  rich;  in  some  instances,  to  absorb 
the  lion's  share  of  the  profits.  As  far  as  it  goes  it  is  a  system  of  co- 
operation. 

"  But  it  is  co-operation  going  only  down  to  a  certain  point  and  then 
stopping  abruptly.  There  is  every  danger  that  its  effect  upon  the  vast 
majority  of  workmen,  who  are  not  contractors,  will  be  bad.  The  con- 
tractor is  in  some  respect  in  a  different  position  from  the  employer. 
Dealing  with  but  a  few  men,  and  not  having  the  permanent  reputation 
of  the  firm  to  sustain,  he  is  likely  to  economize  by  crowding  down  wages 
to  the  lowest  possible  limit.  This  is  not  a  necessary  consequence  of  the 
system.  The  best  firms  are  wise  enough  to  avoid  it.  But  it  is  at  any 
rate  a  frequent  consequence,  and  may  fairly  be  considered  the  usual 
one." 

These  objections  to  the  contract  system  in  private  manu- 
facturing enterprises,  so  forcibly  presented  by  Commissioner 
Hadley,  apply  with  tenfold  force  to  the  public  contract  sys- 
tem. The  cutting  down  of  wages  to  the  lowest  possible  point 
may  not  be  a  necessary  consequence  of  contracts  between 
manufacturer  and  foreman  as  at  present  entered  into.  But 
supposing  the  manufacturer  were  to  call  for  tenders  from  a 
number  of  competitors  for  the  position  of  foreman,  on  the  un- 
derstanding that  the  man  who  would  undertake  to  turn  out 
the  most  work  for  the  least  money  would  obtain  the  appoint- 
ment, then  the  grinding  down  of  labor  to  the  lowest  living  or 
starving  point  would  be  not  merely  the  frequent  but  the  inevit- 
able result.  The  foreman-contractor  may  squeeze  the  laborer 
for  his  personal  gain  after  he  has  obtained  his  position.  But 
the  public  contractor,  under  the  competitive  system,  is  com- 
pelled at  the  outset  to  place  the  wages  of  his  employes  at  a 
low  figure  in  order  to  obtain  the  contract.  And  while  the 
individual  employer  may  for  his  own  reputation  secure  a 
measure  of  equity  in  the  arrangements  between  his  foreman 
and  his  working-men,  the  national,  state,  and  municipal  gov- 
ernments, not  being  held  responsible  by  public  opinion  for 
the  oppression  resulting  from  the  contract  system,  and  aiming 
solely  at  cheapness,  not  merely  take  no  measures  to  prevent 
injury  to  the  rights  of  the  laborer,  but  render  it  essential  that 
the  contractor  should  engage  the  cheapest  labor  obtainable 
before  he  can  enter  upon  his  undertaking. 


126  THE  POLITICS  OF  LABOR. 

The  opposition  to  a  system  which  thus  arrays  the  people, 
in  their  collective  capacity  as  an  employer,  against  the  just 
demands  of  wage-workers,  will  naturally  strengthen  the  move- 
ment for  the  public  control  of  corporation  enterprises.  The 
abolition  of  the  public  contract  system,  and  the  undertaking 
of  the  work  now  performed  by  contractors  by  the  national, 
state,  and  municipal  bodies  on  their  own  account,  would  be 
an  important  step  towards  the  broader  reform.  Its  influence 
would  be  greatly  felt  in  molding  public  opinion,  and  con- 
centrating the  power  of  the  working-class  in  favor  of  the 
change.  When  post-offices,  custom-houses,  court-houses,  jails, 
city  halls,  school-houses  are  built,  harbors,  bridges,  light-houses, 
and  breakwaters  constructed,  streets  graded,  paved,  and 
drained,  under  the  direct  control  of  public  officials  employ- 
ing and  paying  all  workers,  without  the  intervention  of  the 
middlemen  who  now  enrich  themselves  by  cheapening  labor, 
the  advantages  gained  by  the  workers  would  be  so  obvious 
that  the  further  extension  of  the  sphere  of  public  as  opposed 
to  the  private  enterprise  would  be  insisted  on.  Simultane- 
ously with  the  movement  for  the  nationalization  of  the  rail- 
ways, telegraphs,  and  banks  of  issue,  the  local  governing  bodies, 
states,  counties,  cities,  and  villages  would  be  urged  to  extend 
their  powers  over  local  corporate  enterprises,  such  as  street 
railways,  elevated  railways,  bridges,  ferries,  gas  companies 
and  the  like.  As  in  the  case  of  the  larger  public  concerns  of 
a  national  character  to  be  expropriated  by  the  general  govern- 
ment, the  principle  of  the  thin  end  of  the  wedge  would  apply. 
When  once  a  beginning  is  made,  other  branches  of  industry  or 
systems  of  distribution,  closely  affiliated  with  or  dependent 
upon  those  taken,  will  one  by  one  be  absorbed. 

While  the  people  are  asserting  their  right  to  control,  in  the 
interests  of  the  community,  those  public  undertakings  now 
perverted  as  the  instruments  of  oppression ;  while  they  seek 
to  use  their  political  power  through  the  government  to  destroy 
monopoly  and  limit  the  power  of  capitalism,  there  is  another 
and  equally  inportant  phase  of  the  movement  to  be  accom- 
plished by  other  means,  It  will  be  remembered  that  in  the 


THE  POLITICS  OF  LABOE.  127 

second  chapter  the  writer  endeavored  to  show  that  the  evils 
of  present  industrial  conditions  were  caused  by  monopoly 
above  and  competition  below — monopoly  of  resources,  of 
means  of  employment  in  the  hands  of  the  few,  and  competition 
among  those  dependent  upon  them  for  liberty  to  labor.  Now, 
while  monopoly  is  being  assailed  by  substituting  government 
ownership  for  individual  control,  striking  first  at  the  points 
where  the  power  of  insistence  is  weakest  and  the  influences 
ranging  themselves  on  our  side  are  most  powerful,  the  war 
against  competition  amongst  workers  must  also  be  pushed. 

By  perfecting  labor  organizations,  establishing  a  more 
thorough  community  of  sentiment  among  workers  of  all 
classes,  and  bringing  to  bear  the  pressure  of  an  enlightened 
public  opinion,  with  the  coercive  power  of  the  boycott  behind 
it  as  a  last  resort,  labor  can  successfully  combat  the  arrogant 
pretensions  of  capitalism  to  "  do  as  it  likes  with  its  own  "  and 
"conduct  its  business  in  its  own  way."  Organized  labor, 
making  its  strength  felt  by  united  action,  utilizing  every  ad- 
vantage, availing  itself  of  the  most  effective  methods  of  in- 
dustrial warfare  in  place  of  the  crude  and  often  unsuccessful 
plan  of  strikes,  can  secure,  to  a  great  extent,  the  control  of 
capital  and  supersede  the  capitalist.  The  success  of  co-opera- 
tion in  certain  branches  of  industry,  when  wisely  undertaken 
by  men  having  the  requisite  skill,  experience,  and  capacity,  is 
no  longer  problematical.  The  wonderful  expansion  of  the 
system  in  England  has  done  much  towards  cheapening  the 
necessaries  of  life  and  securing  to  the  toiler  larger  returns  for 
his  expenditure.  In  Great  Britain  and  Ireland,  at  the  end  of 
1883,  there  were  altogether  1461  co-operative  societies.  Re- 
turns from  1291  of  these  showed  a  total  membership  of 
729,957  persons.  Their  sales  for  the  year  were  £  29,336,028, 
the  net  profit  realized  being  £  2,434,996.  Compared  with  the 
figures  for  1873  a  very  remarkable  increase  is  shown.  The 
societies  have  gained  88  per  cent,  in  membership,  87  per  cent, 
in  sales,  and  119  per  cent  in  profit.  During  the  twenty-two 
years  from  1862  to  1883,  inclusive,  the  total  sales  were 
£305,515,659,  on  which  a  net  profit  of  £24,247,077  was 


128  THE  POLITICS  OF  LABOR. 

realized.  Though  these  societies  are  mainly  distributive,  the 
returns  include  a  number  of  productive  enterprises  conducted 
in  connection  with  the  stores.  The  English  Co-operative 
"Wholesale  Society,  the  sales  of  which  in  1884  amounted  to 
£  4,675,371,  has  undertaken  to  manufacture  its  own  supplies 
in  several  departments.  [Though  productive  co-operation 
is  merely  in  its  infancy,  the  results  already  accomplished 
wherever  it  has  been  established  are  sufficient  to  show  its 
immense  possibilities  as  a  means  of  bettering  the  condition  of 
laborj 

The  report  on  co-operative  production  published  in  the 
annual  of  the  English  Co-operative  Wholesale  Society  gives 
details  for  1885  respecting  the  enterprises  founded  under  their 
auspices,  from  which  may  be  gained  some  idea  of  the  benefits 
to  the  worker  from  association  in  production.  The  Crumpsall 
Biscuit  works,  opened  in  1873,  employ  about  70  persons ;  value, 
of  supplies  £21,352 ;  percentage  of  profit  on  capital,  193-8 
Shoe-works,  Leicester,  established  in  1873 ;  number  of  em- 
ployes about  600  ;  value  of  supplies,  £110,996 ;  percentage 
of  profit,  10  1-8.  Shoe  factory,  Heckmondwike,  established 
1880 ;  value  of  supplies,  £19,960  ;  percentage  of  profit,  5  7-8. 
Soap-works,  Durham,  established  1874 ;  value  of  supplies, 
£16,  570  ;  percentage  of  profit  9  7-8. 

It  must  be  borne  in  mind  that  the  profit  here  given  is  in 
addition  to  interest  at  the  rate  of  about  4  per  cent  included 
in  the  expenses,  which  are  deducted  before  the  profit  is 
reckoned.  That  the  system  under  which  these  results  have 
been  obtained  is  not  pure  co-operation,  but  a  hybrid  scheme, 
retaining  some  of  the  features  of  capitalism,  giving  large 
"profits"  to  non-workers  who  simply  utilize  it  as  a  means  of 
investment,  and  paying  employes  "wages,"  like  any  other 
employer,  without  giving  them  an  interest  in  the  result  unless 
they  are  shareholders,  does  not  in  the  least  destroy  the 
evidence  afforded  by  these  figures  as  to  the  power  of  workers 
by  combination  to  retain  the  large  percentage  of  the  wealth 
they  create.  When  in  the  course  of  a  few  years  co-operative 
enterprises,  starting  heavily  handicapped  by  their  inexperience 


THE  POLITICS  OF  LABOE.  129 

in  the  ways  of  commerce,  having  to  create  for  themselves  a 
business  connection  and  to  compete  against  private  capitalists 
with  every  advantage  on  their  side,  can  produce  such  results 
during  the  early  period  of  struggling  for  a  foothold,  what  may 
not  be  hoped  for  when  the  difficulties  of  the  pioneer  stage  of 
the  movement  are  overcome,  and  increased  experience  and  in- 
telligence have  smoothed  the  friction  attendant  upon  first 
experiments  ? 

It  is  true  that  productive  co-operation  requires  a  much 
higher  standard  of  intelligence,  discipline,  and  organizing 
capacity  than  does  distributive  co-operation.  Those  engaging 
in  it  undertake  a  far  greater  risk.  To  start  a  co-operative 
store  involves  merely  the  investment  of  a  few  dollars  each  on 
the  part  of  the  great  body  of  its  members.  If  there  are  no 
profits,  or  even  if  the  concern  fails,  they  sustain  no  serious 
loss.  But  with  productive  co-operation  the  case  is  widely 
different.  Those  who  undertake  to  be  their  own  employers 
risk  not  only  what  little  capital  they  may  contribute,  but  their 
means  of  livelihood.  They  must  have  not  only  enough 
capital  to  purchase  material  and  pay  current  expenses,  but 
sufficient  to  subsist  on  until  they  can  market  their  products. 
They  require  a  degree  of  self-confidence  and  mutual  reliance, 
and  qualities  of  perseverance,  hopefulness,  and  readiness  to 
incur  temporary  reverses  without  discouragement  which  are 
only  found  among  picked  men.  The  difficulties  in  the  way  of 
both  productive  and  distributive  co-operation  are  greater  here 
than  in  England.  Americans  are  more  migratory  in  their 
habits.  There  is  seldom  that  feeling  of  permanent  settlement 
and  fixity  of  location  among  the  working-people  of  this  con- 
tinent which  is  necessary  for  the  success  of  co-operative 
enterprises.  The  man  who  has  already  been  compelled  to  make 
several  changes  of  residence  to  secure  work  and  who  regardg 
himself  as  a  temporary  resident,  not  knowing  when  he  may 
again  have  to  remove  to  a  distant  point,  is  not  likely  to  in- 
terest himself  in  undertakings  which  are  essentially  local. 
Where  this  liability  to  change  of  residence  prevails,  working- 
men  have  not  the  same  opportunity  of  making  themselves 

9 


130  THE  POLITICS  OF  LABOR. 

thoroughly  acquainted  with  each  other's  characters,  and  ac- 
quiring the  confidence  in  the  integrity  and  fidelity  of  their 
associates  which  exists  where  men  have  been  brought  up 
together  and  expect  to  live  and  die  members  of  the  same 
community. 

There  are  a  large  number,  of  course,  to  whom  these  observa- 
tions will  not  apply,  men  who,  have  steady  employment  and 
comfortable  homes  of  their  own,  who  are  thoroughly  identi- 
fied with  the  localities  where  they  live.  But  for  some  reason 
or  other,  whether  it  be  the  contempt  for  petty  economies  and 
trifling  percentages  which  is  a  legacy  of  the  "  good  times  " 
of  inflation,  or  the  kindred  American  aversion  to  small  begin- 
nings and  gradual  progress,  and  the  unattractiveness  from 
that  standpoint  of  a  system  which  dispenses  with  the 
glitter  and  display  of  competitive  trade,  co-operation  on  this 
continent  has  not  hitherto  attained  anything  like  the  propor- 
tions which  it  can  boast  in  England. 

In  the  present  condition  of  labor  there  are  few  departments 
of  industry  in  which  much  can  be  expected  in  the  way  of 
productive  co-operative  work  at  present.  The  conditions  are 
against  it  as  a  general  measure.  Here  and  there  a  band  of 
picked  men,  having  the  necessary  capital  and  experience,  and 
under  exceptionally  favorable  circumstances  in  regard  to 
finding  a  market  for  their  products,  may  succeed,  as  some 
have  already  done,  in  working  out  their  independence  of 
capitalistic  control.  But  in  the  great  staple  lines  of  manufact- 
ure, in  those  departments  where  huge  corporations,  counting 
their  capital  by  the  millions,  already  hold  the  position  and 
command  the  channels  of  distributions,  the  attempt  would  be 
hopeless.  The  capitalists  who  control  the  cotton  manufactur. 
ing  interest  or  the  iron  and  steel  trade,  would  speedily  crush 
out  a  co-operative  rival,  even  if  they  had  to  sell  at  a  loss  for  a 
time  to  do  it. 

But  in  every  direction  in  which  co-operation  offers  a  fair 
chance  of  success,  wherever  a  branch  of  manufacture  exists 
which  can  be  carried  on  with  comparatively  little  capital  and 
begun  on  a  small  scale,  then  the  attempt  at  self-emancipation 


THE  POLITICS  OF  LABOR.  131 

from  wage-thraldom  ought  to  be  made.  If,  instead  of  wasting 
money  upon  strikes,  which  drain  the  resources  of  labor 
unions,  the  amounts  were  carefully  laid  by  until  an  oppor- 
tunity to  start  a  few  men  in  some  co-operative  enterprise 
presented  itself,  the  benefits  achieved  would  be  infinitely 
greater.  The  manner  in  which,  during  any  extensive  disturb- 
ance of  the  relations  between  capitalism  and  labor  organi- 
zations of  different  classes  of  workers,  totally  unknown  to 
each  other  perhaps  even  by  name,  render  mutual  assistance,  is 
a  splendid  tribute  to  the  great  principle  of  the  solidarity  of 
labor.  The  sums  of  money  proffered  from  far  and  near,  the 
few  cents  from  each  individual  swelling  into  the  hundreds 
and  thousands  and  tens  of  thousands  of  dollars,  present  a 
noble  testimony  to  the  thoroughness  with  which  the  wage- 
workers  have  learned  the  lesson  that  "  an  injury  to  one  is  the 
concern  of  all."  But  how  much  more  satisfactory  would  the 
result  have  been  had  the  amounts  thus  lavishly  poured  into 
the  treasuries  of  strike  committees  been  devoted  to  organiz- 
ing co-operative  associations.  When,  in  addition  to  the  money 
payments  to  support  strikes,  the  loss  of  wages  is  also  taken 
into  account,  the  enormous  waste  of  means  and  of  energies, 
which  might  have  been  devoted  to  the  permanent  ameliora- 
tion of  the  condition  of  labor  is  still  more  apparent.  The  census 
returns  give  statistics  respecting  762  strikes  which  occurred  in 
United  States  in  1880.  In  414  of  these  contests  the  number  of 
persons  engaged  was  128,262.  As  regards  the  majority  of  strikes 
no  returns  as  to  direct  or  indirect  losses  were  received ;  but  full 
reports  as  to  the  226  strikes  involving  64,779  persons  show  that 
the  time  lost  was  equal  to  1,989,872  days,  work,  and  the 
unearned  wages  for  this  time,  $3,711,097.  The  report  of  the 
New  York  Bureau  of  Labor  Statistics  for  1886,  shows  that 
the  wages  lost  in  strikes  during  1886,  as  far  as  reported, 
amounted  to  $2,538,544,  in  addition  to  strike  allowances 
and  disbursements  by  unions  to  the  amount  of  $329,080. 
The  cost  to  labor  organization  of  the  strike  on  the  Gould 
railway  system  in  the  South-western  states  during  the  spring 
of  the  present  year  is  estimated  at  one  hundred  thousand 


132  THE  POLITICS  OF  LABOR. 

dollars,  the  lost  wages  at  one  million.  During  the  protracted 
strike  of  the  Hocking  Valley  miners  in  1884-5  upwards  of 
ninety  thousand  dollars  was  contributed  by  the  labor  organi- 
zations of  the  continent  in  aid  of  the  strikers!  Had  a  like 
amount  been  put  into  any  form  of  co-operative  industry  where 
a  favorable  opening  seemed  to  present  itself,  the  failure  to 
achieve  any  beneficial  result  could  not  possibly  have  been 
more  signal ;  and  had  the  enterprise  succeeded  an  advance 
would  have  been  made  towards  a  permanent  solution  of  the 
labor  problem. 

But,  unfortunately,  in  the  past  it  has  generally  required  the 
excitement  of  an  open  conflict  with  capitalism,  and  the  knowl- 
edge of  the  urgent  needs  of  men  engaged  in  industrial 
warfare,  to  rouse  the  sympathies  of  wage-workers  suffi- 
ciently to  induce  large  contributions  for  Such  purposes.  Just 
as  in  national  affairs  hundreds  of  millions  of  dollars  can  be 
raised  for  war  purposes  when  men's  passions  and  resentments 
are  aroused,  where  it  would  previously  have  been  impossible 
to  procure  a  tenth  or  a  hundredth  part  of  the  sum  for  objects 
that  might  have  conduced  to  a  pacific  solution  of  the  difficulty, 
so  in  the  case  of  labor  agitations  a  lack  of  foresight  and 
imagination  renders  men,  who  are  easily  moved  to  action  by 
present  emergencies  and  the  excitement  of  conflict,  slow  to 
undertake  remedial  measures  gradual  in  their  operation. 
Those  who  will  freely  give  in  aid  of  a  strike  without  hope  or 
thought  of  any  return,  without  stopping  to  consider  the  pros- 
pects of  success,  turn  a  deaf  ear  to  appeals  for  co-operative 
schemes,  and  perhaps  justify  their  refusal  to  aid  them  by 
expressing  doubts  as  to  the  feasibility  of  the  project  or  their 
chances  of  getting  back  their  investment.  In  the  one  case 
workingmen  contribute  ungrudgingly  and  unquestioningly, 
in  the  other  they  hesitate  and  criticise  and  tighten  the  purse- 
strings  for  the  fear  of  possible  less. 

What  can  be  accomplished  by  co-operation,  as  the  term  is 
usually  applied,  however,  covers  but  a  small  portion  of  the 
field  of  labor  reform.  The  number  of  enterprises  in  which  co- 
operation under  present  conditions  would  be  likely  to  succeed 


THE  POLITICS  OF  LABOR.  133 

is  limited.  In  many  departments  the  competition  of  accumu- 
lated capital,  which  has  so  remorselessly  crushed  out  the  small 
manufacturer  and  the  small  trader,  would  render  co-operation 
impossible.  The  difficulties  of  the  system,  such  as  the  want 
of  cohesion,  discipline,  and  mutual  confidence,  naturally  in- 
crease in  proportion  to  the  extent  of  the  enterprise  and  the 
multitude  and  complexity  of  its  details.  In  those  depart- 
ments of  modern  industry  in  which  operations  are  conducted 
on  a  large  scale,  requiring  vast  amounts  of  capital  and  the  em- 
ployment of  thousands  of  men  under  the  same  management, 
each  separate  establishment  again  being  a  member  of  a  com- 
bination controlling  the  trade  co-operation,  would  be  an  im- 
possibility. Were  it  possible  even  to  secure  the  means  to 
make  a  venture  in  the  same  line  on  a  smaller  scale,  and  pro- 
duce as  cheaply  as  the  larger  capitalistic  manufactories,  the 
co-operators  would  occupy  no  better  position,  and  probably, 
from  lack  of  business  experience,  might  occupy  a  worse  posi- 
tion, than  numbers  of-small  enterprises  which  have  been  un- 
able to  stand  the  competition  of  their  wealthier  rivals. 

In  the  case  of  these  enterprises  the  solution  must  be  sought 
in  substituting  the  control  of  the  community  for  that  of  cap- 
italism. In  place  of  the  absolute  ownership  of  the  means  of 
production  being  vested  in  individuals,  the  people  must 
assert  the  supremacy  of  the  public  good  over  private  interests, 
the  right  of  society  to  step  in  and  regulate  the  distribution  of 
the  earnings  of  productive  industry. 

The  rule  of  King  Capital  has  already  begun  to  pass  by 
evolution  from  an  absolute  to  a  limited  monarchy. 

To  the  insolent  demand  of  the  capitalist,  when  called  to 
account  for  some  act  of  arbitrary  oppression,  to  be  allowed  to 
"  conduct  his  business  in  his  own  way"  and  "  do  as  he  likes 
with  his  own,"  the  answer  of  recent  discussion  is  an  emphatic 
"  No !  "  It  is  virtually  admitted  that  the  abstract  rights 
hitherto  claimed  for  capitalism  are  practically  untenable,  and 
that  labor  must  be  allowed  some  voice  in  fixing  the  conditions 
of  work  and  wages.  The  consensus  of  public  opinion,  never 
before  brought  so  fully  to  bear  upon  the  labor  question  as 


134  THE  POLITICS  OF  LABOR. 

during  the  last  year  or  so,  is  fairly  epitomized  by  the  pre- 
viously-quoted utterance  of  Prof.  Arthur  T.  Hadley  :  "  The 
relations  between  labor  and  capital  cannot  be  treated  as  a 
mere  matter  of  private  business,  but  involve  social  and  poli- 
tical questions."  '  A  few  years  ago  such  an  expression  would 
have  been  regarded  as  revolutionary.  Now  it  is  echoed  by  a 
thousand  presses  and  pulpits.  The  propounders  of  palliatives 
are  studying  how  to  hedge  round  and  limit  the  heretofore 
absolute  power  of  capitalism  with  checks  and  restrictions. 
The  drift  of  public  sentiment  is  all  in  favor  of  permitting  the 
creators  of  wealth  some  voice  in  its  distribution — some 
guarantee  against  the  power  which  they  have  called  into  exis- 
tence being  used  unjustly  against  them. 

Industrial  partnerships,  boards  of  arbitration,  securities  to 
employes  against  arbitrary  discharge — all  such  proposals  are 
in  the  line  of  social  evolution,  and  assert  a  right  on  the  part  of 
society  to  interfere  with  the  management  of  what  have  hither- 
to been  looked  upon  as  strictly  private  enterprises.  But  the  ad- 
vocates of  these  and  similar  amelioratives  have  little  idea  of 
the  conclusion  to  which  their  logic  leads.  There  is  no  finality 
about  such  proposals.  They  are  steps  towards  collectivism. 
When  once  the  principle  they  embody  is  admitted,  it  is  sim- 
ply a  question  of  increasing  by  degrees  the  extent  of  the  con- 
trol exercised  by  the  community,  and  decreasing  in  proportion 
the  power  of  the  individual  capitalist,  until  the  latter  at  length 
becomes  little  more  than  nominal,  preparatory  to  its  final 
extinguishment. 

"  It  is  the  first  step  which  costs."  As  the  granting  of  tenant 
right  in  Ireland  is  but  the  prelude  to  the  overthrow  of  land- 
lordism, so  the  admission  of  the  wage-earners'  interest  in  pro- 
ductive enterprises,  in  addition  to  a  weekly  wage  fixed  by 
competition  without  reference  to  the  intrinsic  social  value  of 
his  labor,  will  form  the  leverage  for  the  destruction  of  capital- 
ism. When,  either  by  legislation  under  the  stress  of  a  quick- 
ened public  conscience  or  by  more  thorough  organization  and 
discipline  among  the  workers  themselves,  the  share  of  labor 
in  the  products  of  industry  is  fixed  proportionately  to  the  re- 


THE  POLITICS  OF  LABOR.  135 

turns,  and  when  permanency  of  employment  is  secured,  a  long 
stride  toward  collectivism  will  have  been  taken. 

Fixing  the  share  of  labor,  by  whatever  means  of  legislative 
authority  or  of  industrial  combination  it  is  accomplished,  is 
virtually  fixing  the  share  of  the  capitalist-employer.  That 
accomplished,  the  next  step  will  be  to  eliminate  the  factor  of 
usury  from  the  calculation,  and  by  successive  re-arrangements 
to  bring  matters  to  the  point  where  "  the  share  of  capitalism  " 
is  reduced  to  a  reasonable  remuneration  for  the  actual  labor 
of  superintendence  and  direction. 

When  this  stage  is  reached,  and  the  industries  now  con- 
trolled by  capitalism  are  practically  socialized,  each  in  the 
hands  of  its  group  of  workers,  a  few  additional  regulations 
for  government  supervision  will  be  all  that  is  necessary  to 
bring  them  into  line  with  the  expropriated  enterprises  under 
government  control.  Two  movements,  both  of  which  are 
making  great  headway — the  one,  the  assertion  of  increased 
jurisdiction  by  the  government  over  matters  formerly  consid- 
ered beyond  their  scope ;  the  other,  the  disposition  on  the 
part  of  wage-workers  to  closer  organization  and  more  em- 
phatic assertion  of  their  claims  irrespective  of  legislative  ac- 
tion— would  thus  close  in  as  it  were  upon  capitalism  from 
above  and  below  simultaneously,  and  meet  and  merge  in  each 
other.  It  is  often  assumed  that  there  is  an  antagonism  be- 
tween these  movements.  The  advocates  of  the  laissezfaire 
school  are  accustomed  to  deprecate  looking  to  government 
action,  and  to  urge  upon  working-people  the  advisability  of 
doing  everything  themselves — forgetful  that  under  Demo- 
cratic institutions  the  government  should  be  simply  the  instru- 
ment for  accomplishing  the  people's  will,  and  that  in  acting- 
through  government  agency  the  people  are  doing  the  work 
themselves  just  as  much  as  if  they  established  any  other 
agency  for  the  purpose.  To  abandon  all  governmental 
methods  of  reform  is  to  deliberately  throw  away  the  immense 
advantage  put  into  the  hands  of  the  people  by  the  possession 
of  the  ballot.  That  this  weapon  has  been  misused  in  the 
past  is  no  reason  for  discarding  it  now,  for  the  same  increased 


136  THE  POLITICS  OF  LABOR. 

intelligence  and  capacity  for  organization  and  discipline  which 
are  essential  to  the  success  of  any  other  method  of  operation 
will  secure  it  in  the  political  sphere. 

Though  apparently  opposed  to  each  other,  government  in- 
terference and  popular  organization  are  not  really  so.  They 
are  opposed  only  as  the  two  blades  of  a  pair  of  scissors  are — 
approaching  each  other  from  opposite  directions,  it  is  true, 
but  working  together  and  to  the  same  end.  The  opposition  to 
government  interference  is  a  survival  of  the  caste  idea.  When 
the  rulers  represented  a  privileged  class  and  governed  in  their 
interest,  the  masses  of  the  people  being  unrepresented,  it  was 
natural  to  regard  them  as  separated  by  a  social  chasm  from 
the  body  of  the  nation,  having  diverse  and  antagonistic  in- 
terests, and  therefore  to  be  intrusted  with  as  little  power  as 
possible,  and  jealously  prevented  from  encroaching  on  the 
domain  of  individual  rights.  But  with  the  development  of 
political  Democracy  the  situation  is  reversed.  It  is  unre- 
stricted private  rights,  swollen  by  the  concession  of  unjust 
privileges  into  monopolies,  which  threaten  liberty. 

The  advocates  of  laissezfaire  have  not  been  slow  to  note  a 
seeming  inconsistency  on  the  part  of  those  who  favor  govern- 
ment interference  yet  denounce  the  government  under  exist- 
ing conditions  as  the  facile  and  corrupt  instrument  of  mono- 
poly. It  is  a  seeming  inconsistency  only.  Before  adminis- 
trative interference,  would  be  possible  it  would  be  necessary  to 
popularize  the  government — to  get  rid  of  the  last  vestiges  of 
the  Old  World  idea  of  the  State  as  something  elevated  above 
the  people — to  uproot  the  exotic  tradition  that  a  certain 
amount  of  ostentation  and  display  is  requisite  to  preserve  the 
prestige  of  rulers,  and  to  make  Democratic  simplicity  an 
established  fact  in  place  of  a  byword  and  a  sneer  in  the  mouths 
of  reactionaries  and  Anglomaniacs.  As  has  been  previously 
explained,  it  is  the  influence  of  monopolies  reacting  upon  gov- 
ernment and  the  absence  of  any  strong  countervailing  public 
sentiment  that  has  made  it  corrupt.  The  inconsistency  lies 
with  those  who  quote  the  existing  corruption  as  a  reason  for 
perpetrating  the  condition  which  fostered  it. 


•THE  POLITICS  OF  LABOR.  137 

The  first  step  in  establishing  the  control  by  the  people  of 
the  means  of  production  and  transit  should  logically  be  the 
nationalization  of  the  land.  The  greatest  and  most  pernicious 
of  all  monopolies  is  that  involved  in  private  land-ownership  ; 
the  reform  which  more  than  any  other  would  tend  to  redress 
social  inequalities  by  lessening  the  stress  of  competition  among 
workers  would  be  the  appropriation  of  all  land  values  to  pub- 
lic uses.  So  far  as  can  be  judged  by%present  aspects  it  is  not 
probable  that  this  will  be  generally  accomplished  until  the 
change  from  capitalism  to  collectivism  has  proceeded  very  far 
in  other  directions,  although  approaches  toward  it  may  be 
made  simultaneously  with  other  advances. 

The  agitation  for  land  nationalization  has  made  wonderful 
strides  of  late,  but  public  opinion  has  not  ripened  on  this  ques- 
tion to  the  same  extent  that  it  has  in  regard  to  the  other 
phases  of  Labor  Reform.  There  are  obvious  reasons  why  this 
should  be  the  case.  Social,  like  natural,  forces  follow  "  the 
line  of  least  resistance."  The  numbers  of  those  who  either 
are  or  think  themselves  to  be  interested  in  the  maintenance 
of  individual  property  in  land  are  much  greater  than  the  num- 
bers concerned  in  upholding  railroad,  telegraph,  and  money 
monopoly  and  industrial  capitalism.  It  is  good  generalship 
to  attack  the  enemy's  position  at  its  weakest  point ;  necessary 
to  capture  the  outposts  before  assailing  the  citadel.  But  while 
the  full  accomplishment  of  land  reform  by  the  substitution  of 
public  for  individual  ownership  may  be  deferred  until  collect- 
ivism has  made  progress  on  other  lines,  it  is  altogether  feas- 
ible that  ground  may  be  broken  for  the  change  by  the  gradual 
transfer  of  the  burden  of  taxation  to  the  land.  As  "  incidental 
protection"  was  the  stepping-stone  to  a  high  tariff,  so  "inci- 
dental "  land  taxation  may  be  the  beginning  of  the  broader 
system  of  public  —  not  necessarily  national  —  land-owner- 
ship. 

Hitherto  in  the  discussion  of  the  land  nationalization  ques- 
tion, stress  has  been  laid  upon  its  ultimate  results  in  abolish- 
ing speculative  land  values  and  placing  the  occupation  of  the 
soil  within  the  reach  of  all.  The  matter  has  been  presented 
from  a  bro  nt.  nS  was  of  course  necessary 


138  THE  POLITICS  OF  LABOR. 

in  laying  down  a  great  principle  unfamiliar  to  the  people.  To 
inculcate  the  elementary  truth  that  the  soil  rightfully  belongs 
to  the  whole  people,  and  to  show  how,  by  the  exercise  of  the 
taxing  power,  they  can  reclaim  the  rights  which  have  been 
usurped  under  the  system  of  private  land-ownership,  was  the 
first  work  essential  to  be  undertaken  in  order  to  secure  a 
foundation  for  intelligent  political  action.  But  the  benefits 
and  blessings  to  accrue  from  the  abolition  of  personal  land- 
ownership  have  perhaps  seemed  too  abstract  and  too  distant 
to  secure  for  the  measure  that  cordial  and  earnest  support 
from  the  masses  which  is  requisite  for  its  practical 
adoption.  There  are  a  great  many  who  readily  yield  a  formal 
assent  to  the  land  nationalization  doctrine,  as  embodying  an 
important  truth  which  will  some  day  or  other  prevail.  But  it 
does  not  come  home  to  them  as  a  question  demanding  present 
and  persistent  attention — an  issue  to  be  fought  out  here  and 
now,  and  from  the  successful  carrying  out  of  which  they  can 
expect  personal  and  immediate  advantages,  as  in  the  case  of  the 
shortening  of  hours  labor  or  of  financial  reform. 

To  interest  the  people  it  will  be  needful  to  give  more  prom- 
inence to  the  objects  that  can  be  accomplished  with  the 
money  raised  by  land  taxation,  to  show  that  long  before  any 
general  or  comprehensive  all-round  scheme  of  vesting  the 
ownership  of  the  soil  in  the  government,  or  even  imposing 
all  taxes  on  the  land  could  be  achieved,  local  improvements 
unattainable  on  the  present  basis  of  taxation  can  be  secured 
by  the  free  use  of  the  taxing  power  as  a  means  of  ap- 
propriating the  unearned  increment  to  public  uses.  A 
scheme  for  a  free  street  car  service  to  be  maintained  by 
a  special  tax  upon  the  holders  of  land  upon  both  sides  of 
the  line  was  recently  broached  by  the  American  Tax  reform 
League  of  New  York.  The  street  car  and  rapid  transit 
system  has  enhanced  enormously  the  value  of  land  in  the 
large  cities  by  rendering  it  possible  for  those  who  gain  their 
living  in  the  business  centres  to  live  several  miles  away.  It 
brings  land  in  the  suburbs,  which  would  otherwise  have  little 
more  than  agricultural  value,  into  the  market  for  residence 


THE  POLITICS  OF  LABOR.  139 

purposes  at  high  prices,  and  increases  the  value  of  property  all 
along  the  business  streets,  which  thus  become  great  arteries 
of  traffic.  It  is  aptly  argued  that  the  landowners  who  are 
enriched  by  the  system  should  be  called  upon  to  defray  the 
cost  of  providing  free  street-car  accommodation  for  the  public, 
just  as  the  landlord  of  a  large  business  block  pays  for  the 
maintenance  and  working  of  the  elevator. 

I  merely  cite  this  proposition  as  an  instance  of  the  manner 
in  which  the  idea  of  the  appropriation  of  land  values  to  public 
uses  can  be  popularized  by  setting  before  the  public  the 
tangible  concrete  benefits  attainable  even  by  its  partial  appli- 
cation. In  place  of  the  abstract  and  far-away  ideal  of  a  com- 
plete system  of  land  nationalization,  to  which  men  can  be  in- 
duced by  argument  to  give  a  languid  assent,  just  as  they  do 
to  the  doctrine  of  the  millennium,  with  about  as  little  active 
interest  in  bringing  the  one  about  as  the  other,  Labor  Re- 
formers must  put  before  them  such  presently  attainable 
objects  as  free  street  cars  and  ferries,  parks,  libraries,  museums, 
recreation  grounds,  schools,  and  institutes  for  special  branches 
of  education  and  artistic  culture,  to  be  established  and  main- 
tained by  special  taxes  on  land  values.  When  once  the 
principle  is  established  and  a  beginning  made  in  one  locality, 
the  laboring  masses  will  very  quickly  seize  upon  the  idea,  and 
the  demand  for  public  and  benevolent  institutions  to  be  paid 
for  by  taxing  ground  rents  will  grow  by  what  it  feeds  on.  A 
hundred  ways  will  be  discovered  in  which  the  enormous 
yearly  value  of  the  soil  in  the  larger  cities  can  be  devoted  to 
its  legitimate  use  in  increasing  the  facilities  for  travel,  provid- 
ing opportunities  for  knowledge  and  amusement,  developing 
the  public  taste,  and  making  life  easier,  brighter,  and  more 
pleasant  for  the  masses  of  the  population,  by  whose  presence 
alone  these  values  have  been  created. 

rCand  reform  must  begin  in  the  larger  cities,  ior  two  reasons. 
It  is  there  that  the  consequences  of  land  monopoly  are 
most  severely  felt  and  the  people  most  in  need  of  the 
advantages  which  the  judicious  expenditure  of  ground  rents 
in  works  of  public  utility  would  secure.  It  is  there  too  that 


140  THE  POLITICS  OF  LABOR. 

the  monopolists,  if  richest,  are  also  fewest  in  proportion  to  the 
total  population,  and  the  disinherited  strongest  in  voting 
power.  When  the  experiment  has  been  found  to  work  suc- 
cessfully in  New  York  or  Chicago,  and  it  is  seen  that  no  real 
danger  to  the  public  interest  is  involved,  and  that  the  small 
property  owner  is  touched  but  lightly,  getting  a  full  return 
for  his  increased  contribution  in  his  share  of  the  general  ad- 
vantages, while  the  burden  falls  on  the  very  rich,  smaller  mu- 
nicipalities, where  the  extremes  of  want  and  wealth  are  not  so 
marked,  will  follow.  Thus  the  system,  unattainable  as  a  com- 
plete and  symmetrical  plan  of  universa  lapplication,will  be  grad- 
ually developed  in  accordance  with  the  principle  of  evolution./ 
I  did  not  set  out  to  pen  a  "  Utopia  "  or  "  New  Atlantis,'^ 
to  picture  an  ideal  state  of  society  based  upon  principles  of 
abstract  justice,  with  every  detail  of  social  adjustment  pre- 
cisely set  forth.  There  has  perhaps  been  somewhat  too 
much  "  utopianizing  "  in  the  discussion  of  the  industrial  future. 
We  want  to  consider  not  what  would  be  absolutely  the  best 
and  most  perfect  system  to  draft  for  an  entirely  new  social 
state,  but  to  take  all  existing  conditions  into  account,  and  to 
indicate  what  broad  general  lines  of  action  can  be  most  suc- 
cessfully followed,  what  already  existing  streams  of  tendency 
can  be  taken  advantage  of  to  further  our  ends,  and  how  ap- 
parently opposite  and  conflicting  movements  can  be  made 
to  harmonize  and  converge,  and  every  power  which  nature 
or  social  organization  has  placed  in  the  hands  of  the  people 
be  utilized  to  its  full  extent  in  moulding  the  institution  of  a 
true  industrial  Democracy.  Those  who  condemn  Socialism  as 
impracticable,  and  praise  existing  institutions  as  the  outgrowth 
of  the  wisdom  and  experience  of  the  past,  forget  that  these 
very  institutions  were  not  suddenly  forced  upon  society,  but 
were  gradually  evolved  out  of  previously  prevailing  systems. 
The  teachings  of  history  are  appealed  to  against  Socialism. 
Men  who,  as  students  of  those  teachings,  have  seen  constitu- 
tional government  evolved  out  of  despotism  as 

"Freedom  broadens  slowly  down 
From  precedent  to  precedent ;" 


THE  POLITICS  OF  LABOR.  141 

who  have  witnessed  the  decline  of  feudalism  by  the  growth 
of  the  middle  classes ;  who  recognize  in  the  overthrow  of 
personal  slavery  the  result  of  a  development  of  the  sense  of 
justice  and  humanity  to  a  degree  unknown  to  the  nations  of 
antiquity,  show  themselves  strangely  blinded  by  prejudice 
when  they  assume  the  finalty  of  the  capitalistic  system.  The 
admitted  inadequacy  of  any  scheme  or  any  number  of 
schemes  formulated  for  the  reconstruction  of  society  proves 
nothing.  It  would  be  impossible  in  the  very  nature  of  things 
that  the  work  should  be  accomplished  in  this  way,  just  as 
impossible  as  it  would  have  been  for  William  the  Conqueror 
or  Henry  VIII.  to  have  imposed  upon  the  English  people  by 
the  exercise  of  his  despotic  power  the  system  of  constitutional 
government  which  they  now  possess.  The  very  wildest  and 
most  Utopian  socialistic  system  that  ever  emanated  from  the 
brain  of  a  French  doctrinaire  seems  no  more  visionary  and 
beyond  the  reach  of  possible  attainment  to  the  hard-headed 
and  hard-hearted  political  economist,  than  the  actually  exist 
ing  social  and  political  system  would  have  appeared  to  the 
most  liberal  and  enlightened  of  our  forefathers  a  few  hundred 
years  ago.  Ideas  and  principles  of  individual  conduct,  of 
social  relations,  of  the  rights  and  duties  and  responsibilities 
of  the  citizen,  which  are  now  the  common  property  of  the 
mass,  and  the  veriest  truisms,  would  have  been  absolutely  in- 
capable of  comprehension  by  the  men  of  classic  or  mediaeval 
times. 

That  social  order  and  government  should  exist  without 
hereditary  castes  and  classes,  that  the  ordinances  of  public 
worship  should  be  maintained  without  state  endowments  by 
the  voluntary  contributions  of  the  people,  and  that  the 
necessary  rough  and  menial  labor  should  be  performed  with- 
out men  being  allowed  to  hold  their  fellows  in  personal  bond- 
age would  to  the  mailed  baron  or  cloistered  monk  of  the 
Plantagenet  era  have  seemed  paradoxical  and  subversive  of 
all  human  experience,  and  contrary  not  merely  to  established 
usages  and  conventional  opinions,  but  to  the  order  of  nature 
itself,  Tel;  tfrese  great  changes  have  been  wrought  by  the 


142  THE  POLITICS  OF  LABOR. 

process  of  evolution  going  forward  without  pause  or  rest 
in  which  each  phase  of  mental  activity,  each  triumph  of 
mechanical  skill,  each  stage  in  the  uphill  struggle  between 
the  forces  of  progress  and  reaction  is  but  the  germ  of  new 
and  undreamed-of  further  developments — the  foothold  and 
vantage-ground  for  fresh  advances.  Though  it  is  impossible 
even  to  outline  the  final  form  which  social  institutions 
based  upon  the  principle  of  a  just  return  to  each  for  his  labor 
will  assume,  it  is  within  the  power  of  each  and  every  man 
to  aid  in  rough-hewing  the  material  for  the  edifice,  assured 
that  in  leaving  the  ultimate  result  to  the  shaping  of  the 
future  he  will  be  building  better  than  he  knows. 


CHAPTER  VII. 

STUMBLING-BLOCKS. 

Master,  what  of  the  night  ? 

Child,  night  is  not  at  all 

Anywhere,  fallen  or  to  fall, 
Save  in  our  star-stricken  eyes. 
Forth  of  our  eyes  it  takes  flight, 

Look  we  but  once  nor  before 
Nor  behind  us,  but  straight  on  the  skies, 

Night  is  not  then  any  more. 

SWINBUKNE. 

IN  such  a  contest  as  that  upon  which  the  Labor  Reformers 
have  entered,  nothing  is  to  be  gained  by  ignoring  or  belittling 
the  obstacles  in  the  way  of  success,  whether  they  are  internal 
or  external  in  their  character.  In  all  movements  in  connec- 
tion with  the  onward  progress. of  humanity  the  drawbacks  and 
the  difficulties  have  always  been  great  and  apparently  insu- 
perable in  proportion  to  the  magnitude  of  the  change  sought 
to  be  accomplished.  Arrayed  openly  against  us  are  the 
selfish  interests  not  only  of  the  few  who  actually  benefit  by 
the  existing  state  of  things,[but  of  the  much  larger  number 
who  either  think  they  benefit  by  it  now  or  hope  to  do  so  at 
some  future  time;  the  influence  of  political  and  economic 


THE  POLITICS  OF  LABOR.  143 

traditions ;  the  instincts  of  the  timorous  and  the  naturally 
conservative ;  the  stolid  apathy  of  the  large  class  who  can 
only  be  roused  by  extreme  pressure  ;  and  the  bitter  hostility 
of  the  supercilious  and  cynical  <c  culture  "  which  apes  Euro- 
pean models  and  cultivates  undemocratic  habits  of  thought, 
from  the  ranks  of  which  capitalism  recruits  its  host  of 
literary  hirelings  and  professional  henchmen.  *\  In  our  own 
ranks  there  are  the  weaknesses  resulting  from*  want  of  educa- 
tion and  discipline,  from  lack  of  an  understanding  of  the  real 
object  and  significance  of  the  movement,  and  consequently  a 
lamentable  shortcoming  in  directness  of  aim  and  steadfast- 
ness of  purpose,  and  from  waste  of  strength,  which  should  be 
reserved  for  more  important  conflicts,  in  petty  and  irritating 
skirmishes,  which,  even  if  successful,  are  not  calculated  to 
effect  or  lead  unto  any  permanent  change  in  labor's  relation 
to  capitalism.  JMany  are  still  under  the  spell  of  bourgeois 
political  economy,  and  regard  capitalism  as  a  beneficent  in- 
strumentality for  finding  labor  employment,  needing  indeed 
to  be  occasionally  checked  when  too  grasping,  but  by  no 
means  to  be  wholly  subverted.  Others,  while  willing  to  em- 
ploy every  other  agency,  are  indisposed  to  resort  to  indepen- 
dent political  action,  and  at  elections  are  partisans  first  and 
Labor  Reformers  after w^ardsj 

It  is  a  common  assertion  of  Labor  Reformers  that  on  this 
continent  at  least  the  masses  have  the  solution  of  the  problem 
in  their  own  hands ;  that  as  soon  as  the  working-classes  are 
practically  unanimous  in  demanding  their  rights  they  will  be 
able  to  secure  them.  This  is  to  a  certain  extent  true,  but  it 
is  not  so  reassuring  a  statement  as  at  first  sight  it  seems. 
If  the  masses  had  at  all  times  understood  and  acted  upon 
their  true  interests  there  never  would  have  been  any  labor 
problem  in  America.  Had  they  had  the  foresight  to  resist 
the  insidious  beginnings  of  the  monopoly  system,  and  to  give 
to  democracy  its  full  interpretation  as  securing  social  as  well 
as  political  rights,  capitalism  would  now  be  non-existent  as 
an  industrial  and  political  force.  Unfortunately  the  masses  are 
only  just  beginning  to  think  and  act  in  their  own  interests, 


144  THE  POLITICS  OF  LABOR. 

and  the  task  that  in  the  formative  stage  of  American  institu- 
tions would  have  been  easy  is  now  arduous ;  the  once  plastic 
materials  are  set  and  hardened,  and  the  opposing  influences 
have  become  strengthened  and  inwrought  into  the  very  fibre 
of  our  social  and  national  life. 

But  it  is  well  to  keep  the  fact  prominently  in  view  that  to- 
day there  exist  no  industrial  or  social  evils  which  the  people, 
were  they  enlightened,  united,  and  determined,  could  not  re- 
move. In  former  times,  and  in  Europe  to-day,  emperors  and 
statesmen,  with  large  armies  at  their  call  and  hosts  of  officials 
and  spies,  have  by  brute  force  kept  down  struggling  nations,  and 
taxed  them  to  pay  for  their  own  subjection.  Land  monopolists 
in  densely  peopled  countries  have  taken  advantage  of  the  igno- 
rance of  the  mass  to  rob  them  of  everything  but  a  meagre 
subsistence.  The  money-power  has  used  its  control  of  the 
tools  of  trade  to  add  to  its  glittering  heaps  from  the  penury 
of  the  toilers.  But  never  before  in  the  world's  history  have 
we  beheld  the  forces  of  oppression  and  craft  and  greed  grind- 
ing into  the  dust  a  people  who  are  kept  down  by  no  armed 
force,  who  have  no  superstitious  veneration  for  monarchical 
"  divine  rights,"  who  boast  of  their  universal  intelligence  and 
education,  and  who  have  actually  the  power  of  legislation  and 
government  in  their  own  hands.  That  is  the  exceptional  and 
anomalous  feature  of  the  situation  in  America. 

The  power  of  capitalism  has  been  increased  enormously  by 
modern  invention  and  progress.  One  by  one  it  has  captured 
and  wrested  to  its  own  selfish  purposes  the  very  agencies  to 
which  our  forefathers  looked  for  deliverance.  The  railroad 
and  the  telegraph  have  become  instruments  of  extortion. 
The  "free  press  "  has  become  perverted  and  subsidized  as  an 
agency  for  misleading  and  deceiving  the  people.  Industrial 
expansion  means  simply  increased  profits  to  the  capitalist ; 
smaller  pay  relatively  to  the  amount  of  production,  longer 
hours  and  greater  uncertainty  of  employment,  to  the  worker. 
"The  Great  West,"  with  its  hundreds  of  millions  of  untilled 
acres,  regarded  as  the  heritage  of  the  landless  and  oppressed, 
&as  fallen  into  the  hands  of  monopolists,,  thus  closing  the 


THE  POLITICS  OF  LABOR.  145 

outlet  for  the  swarming  population  of  the  great  centers,  and 
intensifying  the  competition  which  cheapens  flesh  and  blood 
in  the  market.  The  great  ocean  and  land  transportation 
routes,  with  their  wonderfully  cheap  rates  of  fare,  instead  of 
being  the  highways  of  deliverance  for  the  down-trodden,  have 
become  in  the  hands  of  monopoly  the  means  by  which  it  can 
mobilize  its  forces  and  overwhelm  resistance  to  its  exactions 
by  forwarding  fresh  throngs  of  competitors  to  any  point  of 
conflict,.  And  the  nominally  "free  ballot,"  in  the  case  of 
very  many  workers,  merely  serves  as  a  reminder  of  their  de- 
gradation when  the  forces  of  bribery,  menace,  and  coercion  are 
employed  to  make  its  exercise  a  mockery  or  nullify  its 
effects. 

But  more  potent  and  insidious  than  these  influences  is  the 
power  of  old  ideas,  traditions,  sentiments,  and  habits  of 
thought,  survivals  of  a  past  age,  relics  of  a  time  when  the 
questions  now  pressing  for  solution  had  not  been  thought  of 
The  hand  of  the  dead  past  thrusting  itself  from  the  mould 
and  moth-eaten  cerements  of  antiquity  into  the  struggle  of  to 
day  !  Specially  applicable  to  the  opposition  encountered  at 
every  stage  of  the  conflict  for  industrial  emancipation  is  the 
powerful  utterance  of  Nathaniel  Hawthorne  upon  this 
subject. 

"  Shall  we  never,  never  get  rid  of  the  past  ?  It  lies  upon  the  present 
like  a  giant's  dead  body  !  In  fact  the  case  is  just  as  if  a  young  giant  were 
compelled  to  waste  all  his  strength  in  carrying  about  the  corpse  of  the 
old  giant,  his  grandfather,  who  died  a  long  while  ago  and  only  needed  to 
be  decently  buried.  Just  think  a  moment  and  it  will  startle  you  to  see 
what  slaves  we  are  to  by-gone  times — to  Death  if  we  give  the  matter 
the  right  word.  For  example,  a  dead  man,  if  he  happen  to  have  made  a 
will,  disposes  of  wealth  no  longer  his  own,  or,  if  he  die  intestate,  it  is  dis- 
tributed in  accordance  with  the  notions  of  men  much  longer  dead  than 
he.  A  dead  man  sits  on  all  our  judgment  seats,  and  living  judges  do 
but  search  out  and  repeat  his  decisions.  We  read  in  dead  men's  books. 
We  laugh  at  dead  men's  jokes  and  cry  at  dead  men's  pathos.  We  are 
sick  of  dead  men's  diseases,  physical  and  moral,  and  die  of  the  same 
remedies  with  which  dead  doctors  killed  their  patients.  We  worship 
the  living  Deity  according  to  dead  men's  forms  and  creeds.  Whatever 
we  seek  to  4o  of  our  own  free  motion  a  dead  man's  icy  hand  obstruct? 

10 


146  THE  POLITICS  OF  LABOR. 

us.  Turn  our  eyes  to  whatever  point  we  may  a  dead  man's  white  im- 
mitigable face  encounters  them  and  freezes  our  very  heart.  And  we 
must  be  dead  ourselves  before  we  can  begin  to  have  our  proper  influence 
in  our  own  world,  which  will  then  be  no  longer  our  world  but  the  world 
of  another  generation  with  which  we  shall  have  no  shadow  of  right  to 
interfere." 

All  the  weight  of  tradition  and  precedent  arising  out  of  al- 
together different  conditions  than  those  which  now  confront 
us  is  thrown  against  Labor  Reform.  The  battle  will  be  more 
than  half  won  when  we  emancipate  ourselves  from  this  thral- 
dom to  the  ghosts  and  shadows  of  the  past.  Why  should  new 
questions  be  judged  by  old  precedents?  Why  should  we  on 
this  continent  and  in  this  bustling  industrial  age  be  ruled  by 
the  judicial  interpretations,  the  legislative  maxims,  or  the 
social  and  economic  formulas  originated  by  the  idlers  and 
parasites  of  society  at  a  time  when  the  world  was  supposed  to 
have  been  created  for  the  benefit  of  the  rulers  and  the  rich- 
and  the  people  to  have  no  rights  whatever  but  that  of  sweat, 
ing  and  fighting  for  their  benefit?  How  strange  that  inherited 
traditions  and  ideas  should  have  such  a  hold  that  men  who 
are  themselves  workers,  themselves  sufferers  from  caste  oppres- 
sion, should  be  largely  guided  in  their  conduct  by  the  public 
sentiment  and  code  of  principles  inculcating  respect  for  birth, 
money,  position,  vested  rights,  etc.,  created  by  the  dead,  and 
no  doubt  damned,  old  despots  and  sycophants  in  the  middle 
ages? 

Among  the  modern  instances  of  the  survival  of  these  anti- 
quated modes  of  thought  as  reflected  in  our  laws,  customs,  and 
e very-day  actions  and  expressions,  may  be  noticed  the  tendency 
previously  alluded  to,  to  regard  governments  of  any  kind  as 
something  separate  from  and  above  the  people,  differing  essen- 
tially from  other  social  and  public  agencies  by  which  the  will 
of  many  is  carried  into  effect  by  the  action  of  the  few  dele- 
gated to  act  for  them  and  in  their  name — the  maintenance  of 
a  costly  and  useless  diplomatic  service — the  constitution  of  the 
Senate  by  which  it  is  rendered  irresponsible,  except  indirectly, 
to  the  electors — the.  enormous  and  glaring  contrast  between 


THE  POLITICS  OF  LABOR.  147 

the  rewards  offered  to  the  late  General  Grant  and  other  military 
commanders,  and  the  recognition  awarded  to  the  equal  bravery 
and  devotion  of  private  soldiers— the  placing  of  military, 
political,  and  official  services  generally  on  a  higher  plane  in 
public  estimation  than  the  equally  or  more  valuable  arduous 
and  dangerous  work  of  the  industrial  classes — the  power  vest- 
ed in  the  judiciary  to  qualify  or  set  aside  the  legislation  of  the 
people's  representatives,  usually  exercised  in  servile  deference 
to  the  interests  of  capitalism — the  relic  of  the  "  divine  right" 
idea  embodied  in  the  arbitrary  power  of  the  judges  to  punish 
for  contempt  of  court  and  their  assumed  immunity  from  criti- 
cism— and  generally  the  disposition  on  the  part  of  the  pro- 
fessional, educated,  and  influential  class,  who  largely  mould 
public  opinion,  to  regard  labor  either  patronizingly  or  dispara- 
gingly as  a  separate  class  or  interest  deserving  perhaps  of  some 
recognition,  but  necessarily  subservient  and  inferior  to  other 
and  more  important  interests.  It  may  be  said  in  reply  to  the 
latter  statement  that  as  the  writer,  in  common  with  other  Labor 
Reformers,  uses  the  term  "working-class"  freely,  others  are  not 
to  blame  for  making  the  distinction.  The  phrase  is  distasteful, 
but  it  embodies  a  fact,  and  recognizes  an  existing  distinction 
which  ought  not  to  exist.  There  is  a  "working-class"  only  be- 
cause there  is  another  class  or  classes  who,  although  they  may 
do  some  measure  of  useful  and  necessary  labor,  derive  the  princi- 
pal portion  of  their  subsistence  and  their  social  importance  and 
influence  from  their  control  of  capital  and  their  alliance  with 
capitalism.  The  interests  of  labor  are  those  of  the  great  body 
of  the  people. 

Legislation  against  monopolies  is  not  class-legislation  ;  laws 
creating  and  subsidizing  them  are ;  legislation  in  restraint  of 
the  extortions  of  the  usurer  and  the  speculator  is  not  class- 
legislation,  but  the  opposite.  Legislation  reclaiming  the  land 
from  the  absolute  control  of  private  individuals  ;  restoring  the 
function  of  issuing  the  people's  currency  to  the  State  which 
should  never  have  parted  with  it;  nationalizing  the  railways, 
telegraph  lines,  and  mines,  is  the  very  reverse  of  class-legisla- 
tion. It  is  legislating  the  privileged  class  who  grow  rich  on 


148  THE  POLITICS  OF  LABOR. 

the  unrequited  toil  of  others  out  of  existence.  It  is  law-mak- 
ing in  the  interests  of  the  bulk  of  the  people  as  against  those 
of  a  handful  who  now  arrogate  to  themselves  the  right  to 
dictate  on  what  terms  the  rest  shall  find  the  opportunity  and 
m/ans  to  work  which  bounteous  nature  gives  freely  to  all. 
\  The  extent  of  the  usurpations  of  Capitalism,  and  the  inroads 
of  a  perverted  sentiment  upon  Democratic  principles,  is  in  no 
respect  more  noticeable  than  in  the  attitude  of  the  public  to- 
wards labor.  We  speak  for  instance  of  a  "  self-made  man,'' 
meaning  one  who  has  risen  to  the  position  of  a  capitalist.  No- 
body would  ever  think  of  applying  the  term  to  one  who 
remained  a  wage- worker,  although  in  intelligence  and  intellec- 
tual cultivation  he  were  the  peer  of  any  in  the  land.  The 
pulpit  and  the  rostrum  pay  a  hypocritical  tribute  to  "  the  dig- 
nity of  labor,"  but  the  sentiment  is  belied  by  every  action  of 
those  who  utter  it,  which  tests  their  real  feeling.  No  actual 
wage-earner,  however  competent  or  worthy,  could  hope  to  be 
elected  president  or  senator,  or  to  be  chosen  for  any  of  the 
more  responsible  positions  in  the  gift  of  the  administration. 
The  letter  of  the  Declaration  of  Independence  pronounces  all 
men  by  birthright  free  and  equal ;  but  the  unwritten  law  of 
political  custom  and  precedent  makes  a  social  position,  of 
which  the  constitution  knows  nothing,  an  invariable  pre- 
requisite to  the  attainment  of  high  political  office.  So  familiar- 
ized have  the  people  become  with  the  idea  that  labor  is  neces- 
sarily a  subordinate  order,  that  the  nomination  of  a  working, 
man  for  Congress,  instead  of  being  regarded  as  an  ordinary  and 
natural  circumstance  in  a  Democratic  country,  would  be  look- 
ed upon  as  a  notable  concession  to  class  interests,  and  would 
doubtless  be  deprecated  as  the  extreme  of  demagogism  in 
many  quarters.  Yet  the  filling  of  important  positions  by  the 
election  of  lawyers,  merchants,  manufacturers,  and  bankers — 
the  representatives  of  capitalism  whose  interests  are  antagon- 
istic to  popular  rights — is  regarded  as  a  matter  of  course.  Even 
working-men  themselves,  to  judge  from  the  political  action  of 
most  of  them  in  the  past,  consider  it  quite  natural  and  fitting 
that  the  wealthy  classes  and  their  allies  should  monopolize  the 


THE  POLITICS  OP  LABOR.  149 

higher  public  positions  to  the  exclusion  of  actual  workers. 
There  is  a  general  tacit  acquiescence  in  the  political  tradition 
which  entrusts  the  administrative  and  legislative  power  en- 
tirely to  the  hands  of  the  comparatively  small  class  who  have 
special  interests  apart  from  those  of  the  people,  and  ostracizes 
completely  those  who  live  by  their  labor,  because  they  are 
working-men.  With  such  a  principle  actuating  both  political 
parties,  with  an  electorate  so  wedded  to  partisan  issues  and 
blinded  by  party  feeling  that  they  passively  submit  to  this 
discrimination  against  labor,  what  else  than  legislation  for  the 
benefit  of  capitalism  can  be  expected  ?  How  can  labor  fairly 
hope  for  justice  or  consideration  when  the  ballot  put  into 
its  hands  is  used  in  elevating  to  public  positions  the  men 
whose  interests  and  sympathies  are  bound  up  with  the  sys- 
tem that  crushes  it  to  earth  ? 

In  a  real  Democracy,  the  people  would  choose  for  the  lead- 
ing positions  in  their  gift  men  thoroughly  identified  with  the 
views  and  aspirations  of  the  masses,  tried  and  true  cham- 
pions of  popular  rights.  Instead  of  riches  or  social  position 
being  a  passport  to  office,  they  would  furnish  the  best  of 
reasons  for  declining  to  intrust  with  power  those  concerned 
in  the  maintenance  of  special  class  interests,  apart  from  and 
opposed  to  the  general  good.  Yet,  owing  to  a  singular 
perversion  of  the  popular  judgment,  the  causes  which  should 
tend  to  make  the  claims  of  a  candidate  regarded  with  dis- 
trust and  aversion  are  apt  to  contribute  in  no  small  degree 
to  his  popularity  and  success.  After  having  thus  thrown 
away  the  protection  given  by  the  ballot — having  made  money 
and  the  influence  which  comes  of  close  association  with  and 
devotion  to  capitalistic  interests  an  essential  requisite  for 
high  representative  functions,  what  right  has  labor  to  com- 
plain when  its  reasonable  claims  are  scouted  and  its  remon- 
strances ignored  by  the  rulers  it  has  unwisely  chosen  be- 
cause they  were  not  identified  with  labor? 

When  a  wage-worker  is  elected  to  one  of  the  State  legisla- 
tures he  is  regarded  as  a  representative  of  labor  interests. 
The  party  which  nominates  and  elects  him  takes  special 


150  THE  POLITICS  OF  LABOR. 

credit  to  itself  for  having  made  this  much  of  a  concession  to 
the  claims  of  the  working-class.  It  is  looked  upon  as  a  special 
act  of  condescension,  entitling  them  to  the  gratitude  and  es- 
tablishing a  claim  to  the  support  of  organized  labor.  Capi- 
talists by  the  hundred,  and  professional  men,  who  are  the 
close  allies,  sometimes  the  obsequious  hirelings,  of  capitalism, 
are  chosen  without  a  thought  that  there  is  anything  of  a  con- 
cession to  class  interests,  anything  extraordinary  in  the  selec- 
tion. In  short,  it  seems  to  be  taken  for  granted  that,  as  a 
rule,  a  certain  social  and  pecuniary  standing  only  to  be  found 
outside  the  laboring-class  is  a  pre-requisite  for  legislative 
honors ;  while  the  choice  of  a  wage-earner  is  an  exceptional 
and  grudgingly  made  concession  to  the  newly-awakened 
spirit  of  Labor  Reform. 

"  But,"  it  will  doubtless  be  urged,  "  many  of  these  capital- 
ists and  professional  men  began  life  as  laborers.  Look  at 
the  long  list  of  self-made  men  who  have  attained  the  highest 
politicals  station.  Abraham  Lincoln,  Andrew  Johnson,  Henry 
Wilson,  Ulysses  S.  Grant,  James  A.  Garfield  were  all  at  one 
period  of  their  lives  working-men.  Their  humble  origin  was 
no  bar  to  their  political  advancement.  In  fact  it  was  rather 
in  their  favor.  A  presidential  or  congressional  candidate  al- 
ways finds  it  to  his  advantage  to  have  risen  from  the  ranks." 

The  "  self-made-man "  tradition  is  dear  to  the  American 
heart ;  but  it  embodies  a  radically  false  and  un-Deniocratic 
notion.  It  ought  not  to  be  necessary  for  any  one  to  "  rise  in 
the  world,"  in  the  sense  of  ceasing  to  be  a  wage-worker  or  a 
manual  laborer,  before  he  can  hope  to  be  recognized  as 
worthy  to  fill  an  important  representative  position.  The 
very  phraseology  so  often  employed,  "  rising  from  the  ranks," 
conveys  the  idea  that  manual  labor,  if  not  exactly  dishonor- 
able, is,  at  all  events,  less  dignified,  less  compatible  with  true 
manhood,  than  intellectual  toil  or  dignified  leisure. 

When  a  man  has  ceased  to  be  a  working-man  in  the  conven- 
tional sense,  and  either  accumulated  wealth  or  attained  pro- 
fessional or  social  standing ;  then,  but  not  till  then,  can  he 
look  for  political  advancement.  While  he  remains  a  wage- 


THE  POLITICS  OF  LABOR.  151 

worker  or  a  self-employed  manual  laborer,  even  his  own  fel- 
low-craftsmen would  rather  give  their  votes  to  the  self-made 
employer  or  the  professional  henchman  of  capitalism.  Far 
from  being  an  argument  to  show  the  estimation  in  which 
labor  is  held,  the  worship  of  the  self-made  man  is  an  emphatic 
corroboration  of  all  that  has  been  alleged  as  to  the  disabilities 
of  labor,  politically  and  otherwise.  It  proves  conclusively 
that  it  is  necessary  to  escape  from  the  necessity  of  labor  in 
order  to  win  honor  or  consideration.  It  degrades  labor,  as 
a  condition  to  be  endured  only  as  long  as  it  is  inevitable — 
bringing  out  into  strong  relief  its  irksomeness  and  repulsive- 
ness  as  compared  with  the  wider  scope  and  increased  esteem 
enjoyed  by  the  fortunate  few  who  succeed  in  emancipating 
themselves. 

The  whole  tendency  of  modern  education  and  public  opin- 
ion on  this  subject  is  utterly  demoralizing.  The  ideal  of 
the  teacher,  the  platform,  orator,  and  the  press  is  the  self-made 
man  who,  from  being  a  farmer,  laborer,  or  mechanic,  has 
"  risen "  above  the  necessity  of  •  work,  by  accumulating 
wealth.  Ambitious  youths  are  urged  to  "  be  somebody." 
The  professions  or  mercantile  life  are  held  out  as  the  goal  of 
endeavor,  and  productive  labor  is  belittled,  by  implication  at 
all  events,  as  an  unworthy  career  for  any  man  of  enterprise, 
or,  at  best,  as  a  mere  starting-point  or  stepping-stone  to  some- 
thing better.  The  examples  adduced  for  imitation  are  all 
those  of  men  who  have  become  wealthy  or  prominent  by 
abandoning  manual  toil  for  other  and  inferentially  more  hon- 
orable pursuits.  While  a  hypocritical  verbal  homage  is  paid 
to  the  dignity  of  labor,  the  practical  lesson  inculcated  is  the 
exceeding  desirability  of  evading  its  demands,  and  as  quickly 
as  possible  climbing  out  of  the  ranks  of  producers  to  a  posi- 
tion of  greater  honor.  The  effect  of  such  teaching  is  to  fos- 
ter a  selfish  individualism,  and  a  contempt  for  honest  toil,  as 
a  monotonous  round  of  drudgery  affording  no  scope  for  am 
bition  other  than  the  prospect  of  shirkingdc. 

It  is  not  uncommon  to  hear  people  speak  of  the  opportu- 
nities which  men  of  greater  shrewdness  and  resource  than  the 


152  TEE  POLITICS  OF  LABOR. 

average  possess  of  rising  to  the  position  of  capitalists  as  an 
evidence  of  the  satisfactory  condition  of  labor.  The  lot  of 
the  wage-worker,  it  is  said,  cannot  be  so  very  unendurable, 
because  a  large  proportion  have  in  the  past  risen  from  a 
dependent  position  to  that  of  self-made  men.  Suppose  it 
were  alleged  that  the  convicts  in  Sing-Sing  prison  were  very 
cruelly  treated. 

"  Nothing  of  the  kind,  I  assure  you,"  says  one.  "  The  pris- 
oners in  Sing-Sing  have  nothing  to  complain  of.  It  is  very 
easy  to  escape.  Any  man  of  ordinary  strength  and  cunning 
can  break  out." 

"  But  men  are  continually  being  starved  and  beaten." 

"  Perhaps.  But  they  are  escaping  all  the  time.  A  very 
large  proportion  scale  the  walls  and  run  away." 

What  would  be  thought  of  the  logic  of  such  a  plea  ?  Yet 
practically  it  is  exactly  that  of  the  argument  put  forward 
when  the  case  of  those  who  have  risen  from  the  condition  of 
laborers  to  that  of  capitalists  is  adduced  in  reply  to  the  com- 
plaints of  the  disabilities  of  tho  working-man's  lot.  We  are 
told  that  escape  is  easy,  that  shrewdness  and  business  capacity 
and  industry  will  enable  almost  any  one  to  rise  above  the  need 
of  living  by  his  own  labor.  The  hope  of  escape  from  the 
prison-house  of  toil  is  held  up  as  the  justification  for  the  abuses 
and  wrongs  suffered  by  those  who  remain  in  captivity.  The 
ablest  and  the  most  intelligent  workers  are  bribed  into  ac- 
quiescence with  existing  evils  by  this  prospect,  while  the  fate 
of  the  vast  majority  who,  in  the  nature  of  things,  must  remain 
dependent  on  their  labor,  is  rendered  more  unendurable  and 
hopeless  by  the  selfish  efforts  of  the  aspiring  to  raise  them- 
selves, in  place  of  uniting  with  their  fellow-workers  to  elevate 
their  class. 

The  moral  effect  of  the  struggle  of  individual  workers  for 
personal  advancement  by  the  mode  in  which  it  is  generally 
sought  is  largely  evil.  It  is  men's  worst  qualities  oftener 
than  their  best  which  enable  them  to  rise  under  present  con- 
ditions. A  man  of  parsimonious,  niggardly  disposition  is 
more  likely  to  succeed  in  the  attempt  than  one  who  is  gen- 


THE  POLITICS  OF  LABOfi.  153 

ei'ous  and  open-handed.  Outspoken  candor  and  a  free,  inde. 
pendent  bearing  frequently  result  in  loss  of  employment,  or 
keep  men  in  inferior  positions,  while  the  obsequious  spy  and 
tale-bearer  is  advanced  and  rewarded.  Absorbing  devotion 
to  money-getting,  to  the  exclusion  of  other  objects,  usually 
accomplishes  the  end  in  view ;  while  men  of  higher  minds, 
whose  interests,  instead  of  being  centred  on  purely  selfish 
purposes,  include  domestic  and  social  enjoyments  and  intel- 
lectual pursuits,  fail  for  lack  of  the  concentration  of  effort  in 
the  one  direction.  The  self-made  man,  as  a  rule,  is  a  grasping 
and  sordid  creature,  the  predominant  traits  of  whose  character 
are  avarice  and  a  domineering  harshness  of  disposition.  As 
in  the  time  of  slavery  the  slave-overseer  made  the  sternest 
of  task-masters,  so  the  laborer  turned  employer  is  usually  less 
considerate  and  more  greedy  and  overbearing  than  he  who 
has  always  belonged  to  the  capitalist  class.  So  far  as  the 
great  majority  of  workers  are  concerned  it  would  be  infinitely 
better  for  them  if  the  line  were  drawn  as  absolutely  and  im- 
passably between  classes  as  in  the  castes  of  India,  than  that 
they  should  be  mocked  and  deluded  with  the  possibility  of 
rising  into  the  capitalist  class,  which  in  any  event  can  only  be 
realized  by  a  small  percentage  at  the  expense  of  the  best 
qualities  and  finest  feeling  of  humanity,  and  to  the  detriment 
and  disadvantage  of  the  remaining  workers. 

The  self-made  man  belongs  to  the  earlier  stages  of  Amer-  / 
lean  industrial  development.  It  is  a  mere  truism  to  say  that  / 
the  conditions  have  so  changed  within  the  last  generation  that 
the  opportunity  which  once  appeared  to  offer  itself  to  every 
industrious  and  saving  mechanic,  clerk,  or  laborer  of  attaining 
a  comfortable  competency  is  now  restricted  within  very  much 
narrower  limits.  The  proportion  of  those  without  other 
means  than  their  physical  or  mental  capacities  for  labor  who 
can  entertain  a  reasonable  expectation  of  achieving  an  inde- 
pendent position  continually  decreases.  The  following  testi- 
mony as  to  the  diminution  in  number  of  those  who  control 
capital  and  production,  notwithstanding  the  enormous  increase 
in  the  volume  of  wealth,  is  supplied  by  the  census  of  1880  ;— . 


154  THE  POLITICS  OF  LA&OZt. 

\"  In  illustration  of  the  wide  diffusion  of  petty  productive  establish* 
ments  it  is  interesting  to  observe  that  while,  the  settled  area  of  1840  was 
but  a  little  over  one-half  that  of  1880,  and  the  value  of  the  manufac- 
tured products  perhaps  not  more  than  one-seventh  or  one-eighth,  there 
were  almost  as  many  grist-mills  at  the  former  as  at  the  latter  date,  and 
an  even  greater  number  of  saw-mills.  The  figures  for  the  two  censuses 
were  as  follows  : 

1840.  1880. 

Grist-mills 23,661  24,338 

Saw-mills 31,650  25,708 

This  fact  shows  strikingly  the  tendency  to  the  concentration  of  produc- 
tive industry  during  the  last  forty  years,  due  chiefly  to  the  increased 
facilities  for  transportation." 

Obviously  this  increased  concentration  of  capital  in  fewer 
hands,  combined  with  the  operation  of  land  monopoly  in  clos- 
ing the  avenues  to  self-employment,  renders  the  great  masses 
'of  the  laboring  people  more  and  more  absolutely  dependent 
upon  employers,  and  widens  the  chasm  between  classes. 

But  although  the  chances  for  individual  advancement  are 
thus  lessening  year  by  year,  the  public  sentiment  and  social 
aspirations  which  were  begotten  of  conditions  that  have  large- 
ly passed  away  yet  survive.  Men  quote  the  examples  of 
those  who  have  become  wealthy  under  the  former  state  of 
things  as  an  encouragement  to  personal  effort,  and  forget  that 
;  the  circumstances  which  enabled  them  to  achieve  suc- 
cess are  now  entirely  altered  ;  that  one  by  one  the  ways  of 
escape  from  the  ranks  of  wage-labor  are  closing  up,  while  the 
multitude  of  competitors  below  is  ever  on  the  increase,  and 
the  pressure  of  monopoly  above  grows  more  intense.  It  will 
take  many  years  more  to  eradicate  the  "  self-made-man"  tradi- 
tion, and  to  inculcate  the  stern  and  salutary  truth  that  for  the 
overwhelming  majority  of  the  producers  there  is  no  hope  of 
substantially  ameliorating  their  condition  as  individuals,  ex- 
cept by  united  effort  for  the  elevation  of  their  class. 

A  bugbear  which  has  for  long  prevented  even  those  who 
suffer  worst  from  the  effects  of  the  competitive  system  rec- 
ognizing that  the  only  permanent  and  effective  remedy  is  the 
substitution  of  collectivism,  is  the  stereotyped  assertion  that 
it  is  "  contrary  to  human  nature."  It  is  assumed  by  so-called 


THE  POLITICS  OF  LABOR.  155 

philosophers  and  politico-economical  writers  that  the  existing 
social  order  is  based  upon  certain  inherent  and  ineradicable 
instincts  which  must  in  the  long  run  triumph  over  any  sys- 
tem founded  in  defiance  of  them.  This  supposed  instinctive 
selfishness,  meanness,  and  general  depravity  of  human  nature 
has  done  duty  so  long  as  a  reason  why  mankind  should  travel 
along  complacently  in  the  conventional  ruts,  that  it  is  time  to 
examine  the  premises  on  which  it  is  based. 

The  truth  is  that  human  nature,  instead  of  being  fixed  and 
unchangeable,  is  a  most  variable  thing.  \  What  was  contrary 
to  Greek  or  Roman  human  nature  is  found  to  be  quite  in  ac- 
cordance with  that  of  modern  civilization.  Ideas  which  were 
repulsive  to  the  general  sense  of  society  in  the  middle  ages 
are  now  the  universally  accepted  principles  of  government 
and  social  organization.  Human  nature  is  undergoing  con- 
tinual modifications  as  the  environment  of  any  particular  sec- 
tion of  humanity  is  changed  by  new  conditions.  Instead  of 
being  a  standard  by  which  to  estimate  the  practicability  of 
institutions,  it  is  perpetually  altering  its  requirements.  The 
pessimist's  argument  is  a  most  fallacious  one. 

There  is  no  respect  in  which  the  present  era  differs  from 
previous  ages  more  than  in  the  growth  of  a  spirit  of  philan- 
thropy. Compare  the  utter  callousness  of  the  ancients  to 
human  suffering  and  degradation,  the  terrible  cruelties  which 
were  then  a  matter  of  daily  occurrence,  with  the  quickened 
conscience  of  modern  society  to  the  wrongs  involved  in  the 
direct  infliction  of  pain.  The  pagan  civilization  of  Greek  and 
Roman  made  no  provision  for  the  destitute,  the  sick,  and  the 
afflicted.  Hospitals,  alms-houses,  orphan  asylums,  institutions 
for  the  blind,  the  decrepit,  and  the  insane — all  these  were  un- 
dreamed of  in  the  classical  ages.  In  Sparta  the  deformed  and 
sickly  infants  were  exposed  to  perish  miserably  rather  than 
permit  them  to  become  a  burden  on  society.  In  ancient 
Rome,  at  the  height  of  its  glory  and  opulence,  the  principal 
amusements  of  the  citizens  were  the  sports  of  the  arena,  in 
which  thousands  of  slaves,  prisoners,  or  Christians  were  slain 
jn  gladiatorial  combats  or  torn  to  pieces  by  wi!4  beasts  in  a 


156  THE  POLITICS  OF  LABOR. 

single  day  to  glut  the  "natural"  craving  of  the  populace  for 
the  excitement  of  wholesale  bloodshed.  Roman  ladies  of  the 
highest  rank  gloated  over  these  hideous  and  revolting  exhibi- 
tions with  far  less  sympathy  or  care  for  the  feeling  of  the 
victims  "  butchered  to  make  a  Roman  holiday  "  than  is  often 
excited  in  the  audience  of  a  modern  theatre  by  well  counter- 
feited suffering.  Swinburne  says  of  one  of  the  Roman  em- 
presses : 

She  loved  the  games  men  played  with  death 

Where  death  must  win, 
As  though  the  slain  man's  blood  and  breath 

Revived  Faustine. 

Nets  caught  the  pike,  pikes  tore  the  net, 

Lithe  limbs  and  lean, 
From  drained-out  pores  dripped  thick  red  sweat 

To  soothe  Faustine. 

All  round  the  foul,  fat  furrows  reeked 

Where  blood  sank  in ; 
The  circus  splashed  and  seethed  and  shriekad 

All  round  Faustine. 

Such  was  "  human  nature  "  two  thousand  years  ago.  Such 
were  the  fiendish  barbarities  practiced  by  the  most  civilized 
of  the  ancient  nations,  not  at  the  caprice  of  a  single  despot, 
be  it  borne  in  mind,  but  in  gratification  of  a  general  popular 
passion.  Now  the  great  mass  of  humanity  everywhere 
would  stand  aghast  at  the  proposal  to  sacrifice  even  a  single 
human  life  for  no  other  end  than  the  amusement  of  the 
people. 

A  retrospective  glance  at  the  state  of  society  during  com- 
paratively recent  historical  periods  affords  ample  testimony 
that  the  disposition  of  mankind  grows  milder  and  more  com- 
passionate, and  less  tolerant  of  cruelty  and  injustice,  as  civiliz- 
ation progresses.  The  historian  Macaulay  observes  that 
there  is  scarcely  a  page  of  the  history  or  lighter  literature  of 
the  seventeenth  century  which  does  not  contain  some  proof 
that  our  ancestors  were  less  humane  than  their  posterity. 
After  detailing  the  harshness  of  domestic  discipline,  the  hor- 


THE  POLITICS  OF  LABOR.  157 

rible  cruelty  with  which  many  crimes  were  punished  by  the 
law,  the  brutal  sports  frequently  practiced,  and  the  pestilential 
condition  of  the  prisons,  he  says: — 

But  on  all  this  misery  society  looked  with  profound  indifference.  No- 
where could  be  found  that  sensitive  and  restless  compassion  which  has  in 
our  time  extended  a  powerful  protection  to  the  factory  child,  to  the 
Hindoo  widow,  to  the  negro-slave  ;  which  pries  into  the  stores  and 
water-casks  of  every  emigrant  ship  ;  which  winces  at  every  lash  laid  on 
the  back  of  the  drunken  soldier;  which  will  not  suffer  the  thief  in  the 
hulks  to  be  ill  fed  or  over- worked ;  and  which  has  repeatedly  endeavored 
to  save  the  life  even  of  the  murderer.  *  *  The  more  we  study  the 
annals  of  the  past,  the  more  we  shall  rejoice  that  we  live  in  a  merciful 
age  ;  in  an  age  in  which  cruelty  is  abhorred,  and  in  which  pain,  even 
when  deserved,  is  inflicted  reluctantly  and  from  a  sense  of  duty. 

This,  if  somewhat  on  the  optimistic  side,  is  a  measurably 
correct  presentation  of  the  extent  of  the  change  which  has 
been  wrought  for  the  better  by  the  growth  of  the  sentiment 
of  humanity  in  the  last  two  hundred  years.  How  absurd,  in 
view  of  this  fact,  is  it  for  the  opponents  of  collectivism  to 
argue  that  there  is  any  quality  inherent  in  human  nature 
which  renders  impossible  a  social  development  under  which 
the  misery  and  hardship  inflicted  by  the  competitive  system 
will  disappear.  The  answer  to  the  cry  that  "you  can't 
change  human  nature  "  is  that  it  is  always  changing.  There 
is  no  single  advance,  either,  in  politics  or  in  social  organization, 
that  has  not  at  the  outset  been  denounced  on  the  same 
ground  of  its  being  contrary  to  human  nature.  The  early 
overthrow  of  the  American  Republic  was  predicted  for  the 
reason  that  democracy  was  unnatural.  The  people,  it  was 
said,  would  not  respect  a  government  of  their  own  creation ; 
they  must  be  overawed  by  the  pomp  and  splendor  of  royalty, 
or  anarchy  would  result.  But  a  century's  experience  has 
shown  the  fallacy  of  this  reasoning.  Against  the  abolition 
of  slavery  the  same  stock  argument  was  used.  Rev.  Dr. 
Nehemiah  Adams,  in  his  "  South  side  View  of  Slavery," 
written  in  1854,  says :  "  The  two  distinct  races  could  not  live 
together  except  by  the  entire  subordination  of  one  to  the  other, 
protection  is  now  extended  to  the  blacks  ;  their  interests  are 


158  THE  POLITICS  OF  LABOR. 

the  interests  of  the  owners.  But  ceasing  to  be  a  protected  class, 
they  would  fall  a  prey  to  avarice,  suffer  oppression  and  griev- 
ous wrongs,  encounter  the  rivalry  of  white  immigrants  which  is 
an  element  in  the  question  of  emancipation  here  and  nowhere 
else.  *  *  As  an  ardent  friend  of  the  colored  race,  I  am 
compelled  to  believe  that,  while  they  remain  with  us,  subor- 
dination in  some  form  to  a  stronger  race  is  absolutely 
necessary  for  their  protection  and  best  welfare."  Tens  of 
thousands  of  pro-slavery  pulpits  and  presses  reiterated  and 
emphasized  in  every  form  the  idea  that  the  subjection  of  the 
black  man  to  the  white  was  in  harmony  with  natural  condi- 
tions. Again  have  the  predictions  of  the  pessimists  been 
falsified  by  the  result. 

Fortunately  for  the  future  of  the  race,  human  nature  is  pro- 
gressive, and  susceptible  of  improvement.  J  Were  it  otbewise 
we  should  never  have  emerged  from  savagery.  To  live  in 
fixed  habitations,  to  pursue  steady  industries,  to  refrain  from 
acts  of  aggression  on  neighboring  tribes  is  contrary  to  the 
nature  of  the  savage.  But  slowly  and  gradually,  through  the 
influence  of  civilization  and  Christianity,  these  traits  are 
eradicated.  In  the  same  manner  the  special  vices  of  our  age, 
the  fierce  commercial  competition  which  loses  sight  of  hu- 
manity in  the  struggle  for  wealth,  the  greed  which  absorbs 
millions  of  the  earnings  of  others  and  never  cries  "enough," 
the  moral  obliquity  which  talks  of  the  right  to  "  do  what  it 
will  with  its  own  "  regardless  of  the  general  good — all  these 
phases  of  the  human  nature  of  the  present  are  destined  to 
pass  away  and  give  place  to  more  humane  and  reasonable 
dispositions.  A  century  hence  our  descendants  will  look  with 
pitying  wonder  upon  our  system  and  methods,  and  deplore  the 
ignorance  and  blindness  of  a  generation  which,  regarding  itself 
as  enlightened,  permitted  a  few  monopolists  of  the  resources  of 
nature  and  the  tools  of  trade  to  dictate  to  the  great  mass  of  toil- 
ing humanity  the  terms  on  which  they  would  be  permitted  to 
exist.  They  will  be  astonished  that  men  having  political  and 
physical  power  on  their  side  should  have  tamely  submitted  to 
industrial  slavery.  But  as  likely  as  not  this  same  enlightened 


THE  POLITICS  OF  LABOR.  159 

posterity  of  ours  will  in  their  turn  be  shaking  their  wise 
heads  over  some  further  proposed  innovation  to  rectify  abuses 
now  undreamed  of,  and  repeating  with  a  sapient  air  the  old 
familiar  formula — "  It  won't  do.  You  see  it's  contrary  to 
human  nature." 

>  Since  the  doctrine  of  evolution  has  come  into  fashion  the 
position  of  those  who  hold  that  the  substitution  of  co-opera- 
tion for  competition  would  be  opposed  to  the  natural  order  of 
things  has  been  reinforced  by  the  scientific  principle  of  the 
"  survival  of  the  fittest."  Writers  in  the  interest  of  capitalism 
have  eagerly  seized  upon  it  to  justify  the  existing  inequality  of 
conditions  as  a  result  of  the  natural  superiority  of  the  fortunate 
few.  /The  starvation  and  wretchedness  of  those  who  are  pushed 
to  tile  wall  and  trodden  under  in  the  struggle  for  existence  are 
held  to  be  the  legitimate  consequences  of  their  inferiority. 
This  process  is  regarded  as  necessary  to  ensure  the  perfection 
of  the  race  by  weeding  out  those  unadapted  to  their  surround- 
ings. Scientific  srnatterers  are  apt  to  confound  "  survival  of 
the  fittest,"  with  the  survival  of  the  best.  The  phrase  as 
commonly  used  is  deceptive.  In  the  scientific  sense  it  im- 
plies neither  moral,  mental,  nor  physical  superiority — simply 
adaptation  to  existing  conditions.  In  the  modern  industrial 
and  commercial  world  the  very  qualities  which  go  to  consti- 
tute true  manhood  are  often  calculated  to  retard  success  in 
life.  Other  things  being  equal,  the  man  who  is  sordid  and 
penurious  in  his  habits,  unscrupulous  in  his  transactions,  but 
shrewd  enough  to  keep  within  the  law,  and  devoted  heart 
and  soul  to  money-making  to  the  exclusion  of  higher  consider- 
ations, will  have  a  better  chance  in  the  struggle  for  existence 
than  he  who  is  generous  and  humane)  who  would  scorn  to 
take  an  unfair  advantage  of  a  competitor,  and  who  studies  to 
improve  his  mind  and  to  cultivate  the  social  and  intellectual 
side  of  his  nature  rather  than  to  amass  wealth. 
/T'hat  in  accordance  with  present  conditions,  the  cunning, 
the  heartless,  and  the  mercenary  are  most  likely  to  succeed, 
is  not  an  argument  in  favor  of  our  accepting  the  "  survival-of- 
the-fittest "  doctrine  as  a  permanent  bar  to  social  reform,  jit  is 


160  THE  POLITICS  OF  LABOR. 

rather  the  strongest  incentive  for  us  to  labor  to  change  the 
environment  which  evolves  such  a  type  of  "fitness."  When 
the  advocates  of  capitalism  advance  this  plea  for  the  spolia- 
tion of  the  masses,  they  are  treading  upon  dangerous  ground, 
and  putting  forth  a  weapon  which  may  readily  be  turned 
against  them  by  the  anarchist.  Morally,  there  is  no  difference 
between  obtaining  property  Wrongfully  by  cunning  and  tak- 
ing it  by  force.  In  a  state  of  chaos  and  disorder,  the  survival 
of  the  fittest  would  make  those  possessing  physical  strength 
and  numbers  masters  of  the  situation.  Change  the  environment 
from  one  of  unequal  laws,  framed  in  the  class  interests  of  the 
wealthy,  to  one  of  no  law  but  the  right  of  the  strongest,  and 
the  position  would  be  reversed — the  "  fittest "  of  to-day  would 
be  the  inferiors  and  the  weaklings  who  must  succumb  to  the 
superior  bodily  strength  of  the  desperate  and  hungry  multi- 
tudes. In  the  following  verses,  penned  some  years  ago,  the 
present  writer  endeavored  to  illustrate  this  point. 

THE  POLITICAL  ECONOMIST  AND  THE  TRAMP. 

Walking  along  a  country  road, 
While  yet  the  morning  air  was  damp, 

As  unreflecting  on  I  strode, 

I  marked  approach  the  frequent  tramp. 

The  haggard,  ragged,  careworn  man, 

Accosted  me  in  plaintive  tone: 
"  I  must  have  food — "  he  straight  began; 

"  Vile  miscreant,"  I  cried,  u  begone! 

"'Tis  contrary  to  every  rule 

That  I  my  fellows  should  assist; 
I'm  of  the  scientific  school, 

Political  economist. 

"  Do'st  thou  not  know,  deluded  one, 
That  Adam  Smith  has  clearly  proved, 

That  'tis  self-interest  alone 
By  which  the  wheels  of  life  are  moved  ? 

"  That  competition  is  the  law 
j  By  which  we  either  live  or  die  ? 
I've  no  demand  thy  labor  for, 

,  then,  should  I  thy  wants  supply  ? 


riti 


THE  POLITICS  OF  LABOR.  161 

"  And  Herbert  Spencer's  active  brain, 

Shows  how  the  social  struggle  ends: 
The  weak  die  out— the  strong  remain ; 

"Tis  this  that  Nature's  plan  intends. 

"  Now,  really,  'tis  absurd  of  you 

To  think  I'd  interfere  at  all; 
Just  grasp  the  scientific  view — 

The  weakest  must  go  to  the  wall." 

My  words  impressed  his  dormant  thought. 

"  How  wise,"  he  said,  "  is  nature's  plan  ! 
Henceforth  I'll  practice  what  you've  taught, 

And  be  a  scientific  man. 

"  We  are  alone — no  others  near, 

Or  even  within  hailing  distance  ; 
I've  a  good  club,  and  now  right  here 

We'll  have  a  '  struggle  for  existence.' 

"  The  weak  must  die,  the  strong  survive — 

Let's  see  who'll  prove  the  harder  hittist, 
So,  if  you  wish  to  keep  alive, 

Prepare  to  prove  yourself  the  fittest. 

"  If  you  decline  the  test  to  make, 

Doubting  your  chances  of  survival, 
Your  watch  and  pocketbook  I'll  take, 

As  competition  strips  a  rival." 

What  could  I  do  but  yield  the  point, 

Though  conscious  of  no  logic  blunder  ? 
And  as  I  quaked  in  every  joint, 

The  tramp  departed  with  his  plunder. 


It  behooves  the  economic  champions  of  capitalism  to  con- 
sider well  whether  the  systematic  degradation  of  labor  is  not 
likely  in  the  long  run  to  result  in  a  struggle  for  existence, 
fought  out  with  other  weapons  than  those  which  now  result 
in  the  survival  of  the  shrewd  and  unsrupulous,  while  the 
mass  are  victimized.  Either  men  will,  by  the  power  of 
peaceful  and  intelligent  combination,  so  regulate  matters  that 
it  will  be  no  longer  possible  for  a  few  to  enrich  themselves 
by  taking  advantage  of  the  "natural  superiority"  of  their 
acquisitive  faculties  under  the  competitive  system,  or  the 

li 


162  THE  POLITICS  OF  LABOR. 

people  will  re-assert  the  old-fashioned  right  of  the  strongest 
as  against  that  of  the  most  cunning. 

Against  Labor  Reform  is  arrayed  the  enormous  influence  of 
a  venal  and  subsidized  press.  The  modern  "  first-class " 
journal,  and  a  large  proportion  of  those  published  on  a  less 
pretentious  scale,  voice  the  opinions  not  of  the  people,  but  of 
the  wealthy  and  influential  class.  The  press,  never  backward 
in  glorifying  its  mission,  is  apt  to  draw  somewhat  self-com- 
placent and  boastful  comparisons  between  the  complete 
equipment  and  ample  facilities  of  the  journal  of  to-day  and 
the  limited  sphere  of  the  press  as  our  fathers  knew  it ;  but  the 
modern  improvements  have  been  dearly  purchased  at  the 
sacrifice  of  independence  and  outspokenness.  The  widening 
of  the  scope  of  journalism  has  been  accompanied  by  an 
enormous  increase  of  its  expenses.  James  Gordon  Bennett, 
the  elder,  started  the  New  York  Herald  on  a  capital  of  $500, 
and  Horace  Greeley  floated  the  Tribune  to  sudden  success 
upon  a  similarly  slender  amount.  Nowadays  it  is  necessary 
to  risk  a  fortune  in  the  endeavor  to  establish  a  daily  journal 
in  a  large  city ;  and  success,  if  it  comes  at  all,  is  the  result  of  a 
long-continued  and  lavish  outlay.  The  modern  daily  or 
"  high-class  "  weekly  newspaper  is  as  strictly  and  necessarily 
a  capitalistic  institution  as  a  bank,  a  railroad,  or  other  large 
corporate  enterprise  requiring  a  heavy  cash  expenditure  before 
the  hope  of  a  return  can  be  entertained.  The  newspaper 
proprietor  therefore,  at  the  very  outset,  is  committed  by  in- 
terest and  sympathy  to  the  side  of  the  money-power.  Fre- 
quently he  is  heavily  concerned  in  other  financial  enterprises, 
especially  if  the  journal  is  established  on  the  joint-stock 
principle. 

Again,  advertising  patronage  is  the  very  life-blood  of  the 
newspaper  of  to-day.  As  every  one  knows,  the  competition 
between  publishers  as  to  cheapness  has  practically  resulted 
in  furnishing  to  the  public  the  printed  page  for  the  price  which 
the  white  paper  costs  the  newspaper.  The  expense  of  obtain- 
ing  the  news  and  editorials,  printing  and  distribution  must 
be  made  up  from  the  revenue  received  from  advertisements. 


THE  POLITICS  OF  LABOR.  163 

The  result  is  that  to  the  natural  bias  of  wealthy  newspaper 
proprietors  in  favor  of  capitalism,  is  superadded  the  influence 
of  the  advertising  class,  that  is  to  say,  the  well-to-do  and 
moneyed  people,  the  manufacturing  and  business  corporations, 
the  rings,  syndicates,  and  speculators.  The  newspaper  must 
conciliate  the  favor  of  those  who  hold  the  purse-strings  or, 
as  hundreds  and  thousands  of  honest  and  independent  journ- 
alistic ventures  have  done,  go  down  for  want  of  financial  sup- 
port. Being  thus  absolutely  dependent  for  life,  not  to  speak 
of  prosperity,  upon  the  good-will  of  a  capitalistic  constituency 
of  advertisers,  it  is  tied  hand  and  foot,  so  far  as  the  utterance 
of  new  ideas  likely  to  be  unacceptable  to  any  considerable 
proportion  of  them  is  concerned.  The  vast  majority  of  in- 
fluential daily  newspapers  are  abject  and  servile  in  their 
devotion  to  the  money-power.  They  instinctively  or  de- 
liberately range  themselves  on  the  side  of  capitalism  in  every 
struggle  between  the  people  and  their  oppressors.  Not  only 
do  they  systematically  suppress  anything  like  the  individual- 
ity of  early  journalism  in  treating  of  social  reforms,  and  taboo, 
as  dangerous,  discussions  which  seem  to  run  counter  to 
bourgeois  prejudice  or  interests,  but  they  deliberately  set 
themselves  to  distort  and  suppress  facts,  and  to  pervert  public 
opinion  in  reference  to  the  Labor  Reform  movement.  They 
habitually  malign  the  reputations  and  asperse  the  motives  of 
the  best  and  most  honest  of  the  advocates  of  labor's  rights. 
It  is  true  that  at  times  political  considerations  intervene,  and 
that  their  malignity  toward  the  cause  is  veneered  over  with  a 
hypocritical  and  badly  simulated  affectation  of  sympathy,  and 
a  patronizing  tone  that  is  more  insulting  and  exasperating 
than  open  hostility.  But  when  any  occasion  arises  which 
tests  their  professions  of  friendship,  all  such  flimsy  and 
superficial  disguises  are  thrown  off,  and  the  real  animus  of 
intense  and  bitter  class  hatred  manifests  itself. 

"  You  can  hear  in  every  one  of  its  utterances  the  clink  of 
the  dollar  and  the  lash  of  the  party  whip.  The  great 
dominant  press  of  the  land  has  no  sympathy  for  the  masses," 
said  Wendell  Philips.  Every  large  and  important  newspaper 


1G4  THE  POLITICS  OF  LABOR. 

is  edited  from  its  counting-room.  The  press  as  a  whole 
truckles  and  cringes  before  wealth  as  it  formerly  did  at  the 
feet  of  the  slave-power.  It  is  simply  a  huge  capitalistic  ma- 
chine. Intellectual  honesty  in  the  editorial  chair  is  an  im- 
possibility. Neither  talent  nor  brilliancy,  neither  scholarship 
nor  literary  reputation  will  enable  its  possessor  to  retain  a 
responsible  position  in  journalism  unless  he  is  prepared  to 
sacrifice  his  convictions  and  to  prostitute  his  intellect  in  the 
service  of  Mammon.  A  few  years  ago  even  so  powerful  and 
distinguished  a  writer  as  Hon.  Carl  Schurz  was  compelled  to 
resign  the  editorship  of  the  New  York  Evening  Post  because 
he  dared  to  take  the  part  of  the  Western  Union  Telegraph 
operators  at  the  time  of  their  strike  against  the  tyranny  of 
Jay  Gould.  The  case  attracted  much  attention  owing  to  Mr. 
Schurz's  political  prominence,  but  it  is  by  no  means  an  ex- 
ceptional one.  It  is  not  indeed  often  that  the  editor-in-chief 
of  a  leading  newspaper  allows  his  conscientious  scruples  to 
stand  in  the  way  of  his  doing  the  dirty  work  of  capitalism  ; 
for  in  most  instances  he  must  become  known  as  a  zealous,  or 
at  all  events  a  pliable  and  unscrupulous  tool  before  he  hns 
an  opportunity  to  attain  such  a  position.  But  in  numberless 
cases  men  in  subordinate  places  have  been  compelled  to 
choose  between  stooping  to  the  degradation  of  a  mental  pros- 
titution, which  is  as  much  more  debasing  than  physical 
harlotry  as  the  faculties  of  the  mind  are  nobler  than  those  of 
the  body,  and  sacrificing  their  prospects  of  advancement  in 
their  profession.  The  honest,  earnest,  and  conscientious  men 
are  weeded  out ;  the  cynical,  slavish,  and  selfish,  those  who 
value  their  convictions  as  Castlereagh  did  his  country,  because 
they  can  sell  them,  remain. 

The  despicable  subserviency  of  the  press  to  the  influence  of 
wealth,  its  utter  want  of  principle  and  consistency  in  dealing 
with  questions  bearing  on  the  condition  of  labor  was  striking- 
ly manifested  in  two  instances  during  the  labor  troubles 
of  the  spring  of  1886.  The  sudden  growth  and  popularity 
of  the  system  of  boycotting  employed  by  the  laboring  peo- 
ple as  a  means  of  retaliation  for  acts  of  oppression  or  conduct 


THE  POLITICS  OF  LABOR.  165 

deemed  prejudicial  to  their  interests  aroused  a  strong  feeling 
of  antagonism  on  the  part  of  the  employers  and  the  bour- 
geoisie generally.  This  speedily  found  expression  through 
the  editorial  columns  of  the  daily  press.  The  system  was 
denounced  as  "  un-American."  The  Anglomaniac  wealthy 
classes  of  the  Eastern  cities,  who  devote  themselves  assidu- 
ously to  aping  English  fashions  in  dress,  equipage,  arid 
demeanor,  and  carefully  eliminating  every  trace  of  American- 
ism from  their  speech,  aspect,  ideas,  and  sentiments, 
suddenly  developed  a  profound  admiration  for  "  Amer- 
ican" traditions,  and  denounced  the  boycott  as  a  per- 
nicious foreign  importation.  Dudes  wearing  London-made 
clothes,  and  speaking  with  a  carefully  cultivated  Eng- 
lish drawl  and  lisp,  and  high-toned  "  society  "  dames  clad  in 
the  latest  foreign  fashions,  attended  by  liveried  flunkeys,  drove 
round  to  Mrs.  Gray's  boycotted  bakery  in  New  York  to 
testify  by  large  orders  their  appreciation  of  her  adherence  to 
to  the  "  American  "  principle  of  managing  her  business  in  her 
own  way.  Not  content  with  editorial  denunciations  of  boy- 
cotting, two  New  York  journals,  the  Evening  Post  and  the 
Times,  established  anti-boy cotting  funds  for  the  prosecution 
of  the  trades-unionists  engaging  in  the  practice.  The  criin 
inal  code  of  the  state  was  overhauled  in  order  to  discover  an 
enactment  under  which  this  "  un- American  "  system  could  be 
suppressed  by  the  law.  In  short,  the  unanimous  influence  of 
the  leading  journals  was  thrown  against  the  boycott  with  a 
virulence  which  was  evinced  by  the  supplementing  of  the 
ordinary  methods  of  journalism  with  functions  rightly  at- 
taching to  the  public  prosecutor. 

"  Look  here,  upon  this  picture,  and  on  this." 
In  the  annual  report  of  the   New  York  Bureau  of  Labor 
Statistics    for    1885,    page    305,    the   following  testimony  is 
borne  respecting  a  grievance  to  which  labor  is  subjected : 

"  An  abuse  which  has  existed  for  some  time  and  of  which  the  work- 
ing people  of  the  state  bitterly  complain  is  called  black-listing.  In  brief 
this  means  that  an  employer  has  discharged  a  man  because  he  was 
a  prominent  member  of  the  uuion  which  ordered  a  strike  and  had  taken 
an  active  part  in  it,  and  then  notifying  other  employers  in  the  same 


1GG  THE  POLITICS  OF  LABOR. 

line  of  his  action.  If  they  are  of  a  similar  mind  the  unfortunate  man 
is  unable  to  obtain  work  at  his  trade,  and  is  either  forced  to  leave  his 
native  town  and  seek  work  elsewhere  or  else  get  into  some  other  busi- 
ness. This  abuse  is  a  fruitful  source  of  intemperance.  Many  trade- 
unions  and  labor  organizations  provide  for  victimized  members  by 
starting  them  in  some  small  business.  Frequently  a  man  is  suspected 
and  discharged  without  a  moment's  notice.  When  the  unlucky  victim 
asks  for  an  explanation  of  this  summary  treatment  he  is  curtly  informed 
that  the  firm  does  not  propose  to  give  a  reason.  A  case  of  this  kind 
happened  at  Buffalo  while  the  Bureau  was  conducting  an  investigation 
in  that  city.  A  manufacturing  company  in  Brooklyn  entered  into  an 
agreement  with  several  of  the  largest  manufacturers  by  which  a  man 
cannot  get  employment  without  the  written  consent  of  his  former  em- 
ployers. It  was  charged  that  should  a  man  secure  work  in  any  of  these 
shops  the  company  can  pursue  him  and  secure  his  dismissal. 

"  From  the  evidence  it  would  appear  that  in  most  labor  troubles,  the 
most  reasonable,  conservative,  and  sensible  men  are  selected  to  serve  on 
committees.  These  men,  while  honestly  intending  to  do  justice  to  their 
employer  and  acting  in  a  peaceful  manner,  are  really  putting 
themselves  at  the  mercy  of  the  employers  if  they  are  bad  ones.  This 
has  been  demonstrated  by  the  fact  that  they  are  the  first  ones  put 
on  the  black-list  and  thus  compelled  to  leave  their  homes  in  search  of 
work.  The  man  who  counselled  moderation  and  frowned  down  talk 
about  the  destruction  of  property  and  extreme  action  is  discharged, 
while  the  men  who  advocated  these  actions  are  retained.  A  poor  re- 
turn for  the  advocate  of  law  and  order.'' 

This  system  is  of  long  standing.  While  it  is  essentially  the 
same  in  principle  as  the  boycott,  it  is  infinitely  more  injurious 
and  more  productive  of  hardship  in  its  results.  A  boycotted 
manufacturer  or  storekeeper  can  always  come  to  terms  and  be 
reinstated  in  the  favor  of  his  customers  by  complying  with 
their  demands,  generally  of  a  reasonable  character  ;  the  black- 
listed employee  is  permanently  deprived  of  his  opportunity  of 
earning  a  livelihood  at  his  trade.  But  when  has  the  press 
denounced  black-listing?  When  has  any  newspaper  outside 
of  the  Labor  Reform  press  waged  a  war  of  suppression  upon 
it  as  "  un-American,"  raised  a  fund  for  the  relief  of  black- 
listed working-men,  or  clamored  for  the  prosecution  as  criminals 
of  vindictive  employers  who  resort  to  this  cowardly  means  of 
retaliation  upon  working-men  who  dare  to  call  their  souls  their 
own? 


THE  POLITICS  OF  LABOR.  1G7 

During  the  recent  Missouri  Pacific  strike  a  number  of  mer- 
cenary desperadoes,  hired  and  armed  by  Jay  Gould  ostensibly 
for  the  purpose  of  guarding  his  property,  without  provocation 
fired  upon  an  unarmed  crowd  of  citizens  at  St.  Louis,  killing 
about  eight  persons.  This  massacre  was  viewed  by  the  news- 
paper hirelings  of  capitalism  as  an  ordinary,  if  a  deplorable 
incident  of  the  general  disturbance.  There  was  no  outcry  of 
horror,  no  demand  for  the  exemplary  punishment  of  either  the 
immediate  perpetrators  or  the  instigator  of  the  crime.  When, 
a  few  weeks  later,  on  the  4th  of  May,  1886,  seven  policemen  in 
Chicago  were  killed  by  the  explosion  of  a  dynamite  bomb 
thrown  by  some  one  at  an  Anarchist  meeting,  the  entire  press 
gave  vent  to  a  furious,  insensate  howl  for  blood  and  ven- 
geance. Nothing  that  has  occurred  for  many  years  has  illus- 
trated the  un-Democratic  and  slavish  spirit  of  American  jour- 
nalism more  than  this  vindictive  outburst  of  indiscriminate 
wrath.  The  case  was  prejudged  against  men  on  trial  for  their 
lives.  Every  editor  became  a  public  prosecutor,  and  the  tre- 
mendous influence  of  the  daily  press  as  a  whole  was  directed 
to  secure  the  conviction  upon  utterly  insufficient  evidence  of 
those  who  were  perhaps  guilty  of  no  worse  offense  than  the 
use  of  language  which,  though  reckless  and  bloodthirsty,  was 
certainly  not  more  so  than  the  expressions  habitually  em- 
ployed by  these  exponents  of  "  law.and  order  "  in  denouncing 
Socialists  and  Labor  Reformers.  'vThe  shout  of  savage  exul- 
tation with  which  the  verdict  secured  by  such  influence  was 
hailed,  resembled  the  yell  of  a  band  of  Cornanches  triumphing 
over  a  prisoner  at  the  stake  rather  than  the  utterance  of  civil- 
ized beings  contemplating  the  infliction  of  the  extreme  penalty 
of  the  law.  '  Had  the  evidence,  instead  of  being  weak  and  un- 
trustworthy, clearly  brought  home  to  every  man  a  direct  par- 
ticipation in  the  throwing  of  the  fatal  bornb  ;  were  the  whole 
community  convinced  beyond  a  shadow  of  a  doubt  that  jus- 
tice and  public  safety  demanded  the  execution  of  the  criminals  ; 
even^then  the  hideous  brutality  which  found  in  the  death 
sentence  of  the  seven  convicted  Anarchists  a  subject  for 
ghoulish  rejoicing  and  heartless  jests  would  have  been  equally 
indefensible} 


168  THE  POLITICS  OF  LABOK. 

While  launching  indiscriminate  execrations  against  Anarch- 
ists and  Socialists  the  average  newspaper  editor  is  absolutely 
blind  to  the  fact  that  Anarchism  is  a  mere  surface  symptom 
of  a  deep  seated  social  disorder. 

I  du  believe  in  freedom's  cause 

As  fur  away  ez  Paris  is, 
I  love  to  see  her  stick  her  claws 

In  the.n  infarnal  Pharisees. 
It's  wal  enough  agin  a  king 

To  dror  resolves  an'  triggers, 
But  liberty's  a  kind  o'  thing 

That  don't  agree  with  niggers, 

wrote  James  Russell  Lowell  in  satirizing  the  editor  of  thirty 
years  ago.  His  successor  of  to-day,  in  commenting  on  Rus- 
sian Nihilism,  German  Socialism,  or  Irish  agrarian  outrage,  can 
realize  that  these  manifestations  of  revolutionary  feeling  are 
not  causeless,  but  have  their  provocation  in  the  intolerable 
grievances  to  which  the  people  are  subject.  But  in  dealing 
with  similar  outbreaks  in  America  the  conditions  which  ren- 
der the  outcast  and  degraded  populations  of  our  large  cities  a 
favorable  soil  for  the  propagation  of  Anarchist  ideas  are 
ignored,  and  the  old  crude  and  brutal  methods  of  suppression 
of  free  speech  and  the  liberty  of  the  press — vindictive  legal 
penalties,  the  policeman's  club,  and  the  soldier's  bayonet — are 
the  only  remedies  which  these  cowardly  betrayers  of  popular 
freedom  have  to  propose. 

Akin  to  this  malign  influence  of  organized  mendacity  is  that 
of  the  literary  and  so-called  "  cultured"  class  generally.  The 
whole  tone  of  university  education  is  bitterly  hostile  to  organ- 
ized labor.  It  draws  its  inspiration  mainly  from  foreign 
sources,  and  preserves  the  traditions  of  the  European  indus- 
trial and  social  system.  The  shallowness  of  what  passes  as 
modern  intellectual  culture  is  shown  by  its  lamentable  failure 
to  meet  the  problems  of  the  time,  or  even  to  make  an  attempt 
in  that  direction. 

This  is  an  age  of  book-making,  of  strenuous  intellectual 
activity.  Yet  never  since  the  dark  ages  was  there  a  greater 


THE  POLITICS  OF  LABOE.  169 

lack  of  creative  power  or  originality,  of  the  boldness  and 
mental  grasp  necessary  in  dealing  with  a  new  situation.  We 
have  fallen  upon  a  period  of  mere  criticism  and  imitation,  of 
a  dead-level  of  conformity  to  established  formulas  and  rigid 
adherence  to  narrowing  modes  of  thought.  With  the 
modern  literary  school,  the  Fawcetts,  Howellses,  Jameses 
and  other  pretentious  pigmies  who  essay  to  fill  the  places 
of  the  robust  and  powerful  writers  of  the  last  generation, 
the  form  of  expression  is  everything,  the  idea  nothing. 
The  absence  of  a  lofty  purpose  and  the  lack  of  the  inspiration 
of  a  noble  cause  emasculate  and  enfeeble  the  productions  is 
sued  by  the  thousand  by  men  who  are  mere  book-makers,  who 
write  not  because  they  think  deeply  or  feel  strongly,  but  simply 
as  a  profession.  The  ardent  faith  in  humanity  and  the  intense 
individualism  and  self-poise  of  the  old  school  of  New  England 
literature,  now  well-nigh  extinct,  has  been  replaced  by  the 
supercilious  and  cynical  polish  of  conventional  European  cul- 
ture. In  place  of  a  literature  touching  the  strongest  and  most 
deeply-seated  emotions,  dealing  with  great  problems  of  life, 
and  appealing  to  the  hearts  of  the  mass  of  mankind,  we  have 
the  " society  "  novel  and  the  "society"  poem,  written  for  a 
class  and  embodying  the  caste  idea.  Elegant  trifling,  pretty 
conceits,  dissertations  on  drawing-room  manners,  elaborate 
criticism  of  trivial  details  of  social  etiquette  and  nice  shades 
of  distinction  in  character,  form  the  staple  of  this  nerveless, 
marrowless,  soulless  literature. 

"  He  would  have  left  a  Greek  accent  slanting  the  wrong 
way  and  righted  up  a  tailing  man,"  wrote  Thoreau  of  Capt. 
John  Brown.  The  literary  class  are  greatly  concerned  about 
the  absolute  correctness  in  form  of  their  utterances  and  the 
finish  of  their  style,  but  there  is  no  help  in  them  for  prostrate 
humanity.  The  literary  degeneracy  of  the  age  is  due  partly 
to  the  enervating  influence  of  imported  ideals  of  life  and  culture, 
and  the  reactionary  distrust  of  Democracy  fostered  in  those  hot- 
beds of  snobbery  and  caste  feeling — the  universities;  and  partly 
to  the  almost  universal  craving  for  the  material  gains  of 
authorship.  Shallow  and  near-sighted  observers  often  point 


170  THE  POLITICS  OF  LABOR. 

complacently  to  the  great  rewards  of  professional  authorship 
in  these  days,  when  a  single  book  frequently  wins  fame  and  a 
competency  for  the  writer,  in  contrast  to  the  time  when  the 
garret  and  the  debtor's  prison,  the  crust  of  dependence  and 
"  the  key  of  the  street  "  were  too  commonly  the  returns  which 
a  thankless  world  made  for  works  which  have  since  become 
classic.  They  do  not  see  that,  in  proportion  as  authorship  lias 
become  a  trade  in  which  fortune  awaits  the  successful  aspir- 
ant, it  has  developed  the  huckster  spirit  among  its  votaries. 
As  in  the  case  of  journalism,  the  literary  guild  have  become 
to  a  very  great  extent,  either  instinctively  or  from  sheer  self- 
interest,  the  upholders  of  existing  social  injustice  and  the  op- 
ponents of  organic  change.  The  whole  range  of  influences 
and  cramping  conventionalities  which  surround  the  modern  pro- 
fessional writer  are  hostile  to  freedom  of  expression  and  to  the 
effective  treatment  of  the  new  issues  which  have  arisen.  Men 
who  write  in  the  hope  of  large  pecuniary  rewards,  and  aim  at 
social  position ;  who  have  set  their  hearts  on  immediate  popu- 
larity and  success,  are  under  heavy  bonds  to  say  nothing  op- 
posed to  the  interests  or  the  prejudices  of  the  moneyed  and 
comfortable  class.  They  dare  not  array  themselves  on  the 
side  of  the  struggling  poor,  or  grapple  with  the  question  which 
is  now  overshadowing  all  others  in  its  importance,  except  to 
deal  in  platitudes  and  falsisms,  restatements  of  outworn  econ- 
omic dogmas,  and  recommendations  of  palliatives  utterly  in- 
adequate to  meet  the  case,  such  as  form  the  stock-in-trade  of 
the  "  labor  "  articles  in  the  magazines.  Not  from  those  who 
have  "  given  hostages  to  fortune  "  in  a  different  sense  from 
that  in  which  the  term  is  generally  employed,  who  are  look- 
ing anxiously  for  the  favor  of  the  wealthy,  the  press  they 
control  and  the  society  they  dominate,  can  Labor  Reformers 
expect  anything  but  opposition  and  misrepresentation.  As 
the  Garrisons  and  the  Phillipses,  in  their  long  struggle 
to  awaken  the  conscience  of  the  American  people  to  the 
i  \iquities  of  slavery,  had  to  face  the  hostility  of  the  pre- 
tentious and  pharisaical  "  culture  "  of  their  day,  so  those 
who  are  enlisted  in  the  conflict  against  the  oppressions  of 


THE  POLITICS  OF  LABOR.  171 

capitalism  must  be  prepared  to  encounter  the  hatred  of  the 
servile  and  self-seeking 

The  culture  of  the  college  and  of  literary  coteries  is  narrowing 
and  dwarfing  in  its  effects.  It  tends  to  prune  and  to  polish 
away  whatever  of  native  vigor  exists.  It  represses  anything 
like  spontaneity  and  naturalness.  It  limits  instead  of  broad 
ening  the  range  of  sympathies,  and  cultivates  a  spirit  of- 
pessirnistic  optimism,  if  the  paradox  is  permissible.  By  this 
I  mean  a  complacent  satisfaction  with  existing  conditions,  as 
viewed  from  the  standpoint  of  personal  and  class  interests, 
combined  with  indifference  or  despair  as  to  the  possibility  of 
ever  substantially  bettering  the  lot  of  the  many.  Its  creed  is 
that  the  mass,  even  though  nominally  free,  can  never  become 
intelligent,  or  fit  to  govern  themselves — that  they  must  be 
led  by  "  statesmen,"  and  amused  by  giving  them  the  sem- 
blance of  political  power  wrhile  the  reality  is  exercised  only 
by  the  few.  While  perhaps  rendering  a  hypocritical  homage 
to  Democracy  in  its  narrowest  sense  of  "  the  right  to  choose 
one's  jailers,"  the  class  who  claim  a  monopoly  of  culture  and 
enlightenment  are  strenuously  opposed  to  the  idea  of  a  true 
Democracy  of  equality  of  social  rights  and  opportunities. 
The  exaggerated  estimates  set  upon  talent,  diplomacy,  tact, 
shrewdness,  and  the  like  qualities,  which  are  so  extravagant- 
ly rewarded  under  the  competitive  system,  as  compared  with 
ordinary  industry,  is  upheld  by  their  teachings.  The  perni- 
cious and  undemocratic  view,  that  government  is  necessarily 
a  science  of  infinite  complexity,  involving  abstruse  problems, 
and  demanding  qualities  higher  and  more  valuable  than  the 
ordinary  business  capacity  and  good  sense  of  the  average 
educated  citizen,  finds  extensive  currency  in  their  utterances 
upon  public  affairs.  In  short,  the  tenor  and  aim  of  the  bulk 
of  modern  American  literature  is  to  accentuate  class  dis- 
tinctions ;  to  exalt  wealth,  social  influence,  genius,  and  states- 
manship ;  to  build  up  a  bourgeois  aristocracy  ;  and  to  depress 
the  simple  citizen,  upon  whose  plodding  industry  the  stability 
of  the  whole  fabric  rests,  to  the  level  of  European  subject- 
hood. 


172  THE  POLITICS  OF  LABOR. 

The  influence  of  wealth  has  corrupted  our  literary  and 
educational  institutions  to  the  core.  The  practice  which  so 
largely  prevails  of  millionaires  bequeathing  or  giving  during 
their  lifetimes  large  endowments  to  colleges  and  academies 
naturally  enlists  these  powerful  factors  of  public  opinion  on 
the  side  of  capitalism.  The  occupant  of  university  chairs 
and  like  lucrative  positions,  whose  salary  is  paid  from  the 
donations  of  merchant  princes  and  railroad  magnates,  cannot, 
any  more  than  the  hired  journalist  or  popularity-hunting 
book-maker,  honestly  employ  his  talents  in  searching  for 
the  truth.  He  is  paid  to  find  the  best  defence  he  can  for  an 
existing  system,  not  to  boldly  and  freely  examine  all  sides  of 
the  question  and  fearlessly  announce  his  conclusions. 

Owing  to  the  same  insidious  influence  the  Church  has  also 
been  largely  perverted  into  an  ally  and  an  instrument  of  the 
money-power,  and  the  apologist  for  the  very  worst  of  its  op- 
pressions. There  are  noble  exceptions,  but  for  the  most  part 
the  ministry  are  the  servile  tools  of  the  rich  men's  social 
clubs  and  Sunday  opera  companies,  which  make  a  mockery  of 
religion  by  calling  themselves  churches.  The  modern  fash- 
ionable church  is  a  capitalistic  institution,  membership  in 
which  is  sought  for  its  commercial  and  social  advantages. 
The  pastor,  absolutely  dependent  on  the  favor  of  the  rich  and 
influential,  becomes  the  obsequious  sycophant  of  wealth,  and 
the  ready  defender  of  the  system  which  he,  in  common  with 
his  patrons,  has  a  personal  interest  in  maintaining.  The  pro- 
fessed expounders  of  a  gospel  abounding  with  the  sternest 
and  plainest  denunciations  of  usury,  extortion,  land-grabbing, 
and  oppression  of  the  poor,  wrest  the  scripture  to  justify 
every  species  of  craft  and  villainy  by  which  the  poor  are 
wronged.  The  religious  "  liberality  "  of  the  millionaires,  so 
highly  praised,  and  so  often  advanced  as  a  plea  in  justification 
of  the  system — the  "beneficence"  that  endows  churches, 
missions,  theological  colleges,  Bible  and  tract  societies,  and 
the  like,  with  the  wealth  upon  which  even  the  most  tenacious 
grasp  must  relax  at  the  touch  of  a  skeleton  finger,  is,  in  fact, 
a  subtle,  insidious,  but  none  the  less  effective  means  of  whole- 


THE  POLITICS  OF  LABOR.  173 

sale  bribery,  by  which  professional  religionism  is  suborned  to 
the  service  of  Mammon. 

In  the  Church  of  the  Strangers  in  New  York,  endowed  by 
the  late  Cornelius  Yanderbilt,  there  was,  and  probablyis  now, 
a  bronze  plate  on  the  wall  near  the  pulpit,  bearing  the  fol- 
lowing inscription : 

Erected 
To  the  Glory  of  God, 

and  in  memory  of 
CORNELIUS  YANDERBILT, 

By  the 
Church  of  the 

Strangers. 

"  The  name  of  God,"  says  an  indignant  newspaper  corre- 
spondent, "  is  placed  on  this  tablet  in  small  letters  at  the  end 
of  an  insignificant  line,  while  that  of  Cornelius  Yanderbilt 
stands  out  on  a  broad  brazen  belt  in  the  full  obtrusiveness  of 
flaring  capitals." 

It  is  not  often  that  good  taste  and  religious  feeling  are  so 
flagrantly  outraged  on  the  surface,  but  the  spirit  that  dic- 
tated this  piece  of  ostentatious  irreverence  pervades  the  fash- 
ionable religion  of  the  day.  In  how  many  of  our  wealthy 
churches  are  the  glory  of  God  and  the  rights  of  humanity 
alike  subordinated  to  the  exaltation  of  the  millionaire  ! 

The  stumbling-blocks  in  the  way  of  Labor's  emancipation 
are  mental  rather  than  physical.  Bulwer  Lytton,  in  his 
work  on  "  England  and  the  English,"  sums  up  the  matter  ad- 
mirably in  speaking  of  those  influences  which  there  retard 
popular  progress.  "  You-  have  observed,"  he  says,  "  that 
the  worst  part  of  these  influences  is  in  a  moral  influence. 
This  you  can  counteract  by  a  new  moral  standard  of  opinion. 
Once  accustom  yourselves  to  think  that 

*  Rank  is  but  the  guinea-stamp, 
The  man's  the  gowd  for  a'  that' — 

once  learn  to  detach  respectability  from  acres  and  rent-rolls 
— once  learn  indifference  for  fashion  and  fine  people,  for  the 
*  whereabouts '  pf  lords  and  ladies,  for  the  orations  of  men 


174  THE  POLITICS  OF  LABOR. 

boasting  of  the  virtue  of  making  money — once  learn  to  prize 
at  their  full  worth  a  high  integrity  and  a  lofty  intellect— 
once  find  yourself  running  to  gaze,  not  on  foreign  princes  and 
lord  mayor's  coaches,  but  on  those  who  elevate,  benefit,  and 
instruct  you,  and  you  will  behold  a  new  influence,  pushing 
its  leaves  and  blossoms  from  amidst  the  dead  corruption  of 
the  old.  To  counteract  a  bad  moral  influence,  neyer  let  us 
omit  to  repeat  that  you  must  create  a  good  moral  influence. 
Reformed  opinion  precedes  reformed  legislation.  "Now  is 
the  day  for  writers  and  advisers ;  they  prepare  the  path  for 
true  law-givers ;  they  are  the  pioneers  of  good  ;  no  reform  is 
final,  save  the  reform  of  mind." 


CHAPTER  VIII. 

THE    SOLIDAEITY   OF  LABOB. 

Labor  is  of  no  country. 

KAEL  MABX. 

Laborin'  man  an'  labor! n'  woman 

Have  one  glory  an'  one  shame ; 
Every  thin'  that's  done  inhuman 

Injures  all  on  'em  the  same. 

LOWELL. 

THAT  all  labor  has  a  common  interest  is  one  of  the  truisms 
of  the  Labor  Reform  movement.  Loudly  proclaimed,  en- 
thusiastically preached,  blazoned  forth  in  the  mottoes  of  labor 
unions,  and  ostensibly  of  universal  acceptance,  it  is  too  seldom 
acted  upon,  or  its  full  significance  realized.  The  world  of 
labor  is  pervaded  by  the  spirit  of  class  and  division.  The 
short-sightedness  which  looks  only  to  trifling  immediate  ad- 
vantages, small  increase  of  pay,  petty  advances  of  one  class 
of  workers  at  the  expense  of  others,  the  prejudices  of  race 
and  creed,  and  the  divisions  of  party  politics,  have  tended  to 
keep  asunder  men  whose  larger  interests  are  mutual,  and 
whose  future  depends  on  united,  harmonious,  and  well-directed 
action.  These  divisions  have  been  cunningly  fostered  and 


THE  POLITICS  OF  LABOR.  175 

exaggerated  by  the  influences  at  work  in  the  cause  of  capital- 
ism. False  issues  are  continually  being  raised,  and  jealousies 
assiduously  promoted  in  order  to  prevent  the  laboring-class 
from  presenting  a  united  front  to  the  common  enemy. 

And  no  wonder.  Ttye  solidarity  of  labor  means  the  anni- 
hilation of  capitalism.  When  all  who  toil  are  practically 
unanimous  in  demanding  the  social  reorganization  of  industry, 
and  the  recognition  of  labor-value  as  the  only  right  to  sub- 
sistence, the  day  of  those  who  now  claim  the  lion's  share  of 
production,  as  possessors  merely,  will  be  over. 

The  American  labor  question  is  complicated  and  rendered 
difficult  of  solution  by  the  results  of  Old-world  systems  of 
misgovernment  and  industrial  oppression.  Immigrants  by 
the  hundred  thousand  yearly  seek  our  shores.  The  exten- 
sion of  the  ocean  transportation-service  and  the  shortening 
and  cheapening  of  the  voyage  has  mobilized  the  labor-forces 
of  the  civilized  world,  and  given  a  literal  significance  to  the 
saying  of  Marx,  that  "  Labor  is  of  no  country."  Whether  we 
accept  that  doctrine  in  the  sense  in  which  it  was  uttered  or 
not,  we  have  no  alternative  as  regards  the  fact  that  the 
barriers  of  race  and  language  and  distance,  wrhich  formerly 
restricted  competition,  are  breaking  down  on  all  sides.  We 
are  entering  upon  an  era  of  industrial  internationalism. 
Narrow  our  sympathies,  cherish  our  old-time  prejudices  as 
we  may,  the  solidarity  of  labor  as  a  force  at  the  disposal  of 
capitalism  is  an  established  condition  which  cannot  be  gain- 
said. When  Italians  and  Irishmen  wrork  side-by-side  on  the 
railroads,  and  Hungarians,  Poles,  and  the  miscellaneous  cheap 
labor  of  South-eastern  Europe  compete  with  the  American 
and  English-speaking  working-men  in  the  coal  mines  and 
coke-ovens  of  Pennsylvania  and  Ohio — when  the  French 
Canadians  swarm  in  the  textile  factories  of  the  East  and  the 
pine  forests  of  the  North-West,  and  the  Southern  plantations 
are  drawn  on  for  their  dusky  contingents  when  unskilled 
labor  is  on  strike — when  the  Pacific  states,  barely  reclaimed 
from  Indian  savagery,  have  to  be  defended  against  the  flood 
of  Mongolian  semi-barbarism,  the  inadequacy  of  any  action 


176  THE  POLITICS  OF  LABOR. 

based  upon  national  distinctions  or  the  lines  of  color  and 
creed  ought  to  be  apparent  to  all. 

Capitalism  is  cosmopolitan.  It  has  no  patriotism  and  no 
prejudices.  It  will  levy  its  tribute  from  black  or  white, 
European  or  American,  Protestant  or  Catholic  with  indis- 
criminating  impartiality.  The  vampires  of  the  London 
money-market,  having  drained  the  life-blood  from  Turk  and 
Egyptian,  seek  fresh  victims  on  the  Western  Continent. 
English  and  Irish  landlords,  conscious  of  their  waning  power, 
and  alarmed  by  the  diminution  of  their  rent-rolls,  cross  the 
Atlantic  and  acquire  millions  of  acres  of  virgin  soil  in  order 
to  command  the  product  of  the  labor  of  Americans,  and  per- 
petuate here  the  system  of  landed  estates  which  is  tottering 
to  its  fall  in  their  native  country.  There  is  no  more  mean- 
spirited  and  despicable  class  of  reactionaries  than  the 
American  millionaires*,  whose  sympathies  are  notoriously  hos- 
tile to  the  popular  cause  in  Europe.  The  most  detested  of 
Scottish  landlords  is  the  American,  Ross  Winans,  who  by  his 
rapacity  and  petty  despotism  has  done  more  to  arouse  public 
opinion  against  the  system  than  the  exactions  of  native  land- 
lords. The  idle  and  luxurious  class  of  Americans  abroad 
were  conspicuous  among  the  upholders  of  that  gilded  sham, 
the  Second  Empire  in  France,  as  to-day  they  are  prominent 
in  courtly  and  aristocratic  circles  in  England.  The  instinc- 
tive sympathy  of  the  wealthy  and  ruling  classes  of  different 
countries  with  each  other  has  at  times  produced  the  most  far- 
reaching  results  in  shaping  the  course  of  events.  George 
Otto  Trevelyan,  in  his  "  Early  History  of  Charles  James  Fox," 
points  out  how  the  fellow-feeling  of  the  British  upper  classes 
for  the  French  aristocracy  at  the  time  of  the  Revolution  af- 
fected the  policy  of  England. 

"  That  sympathy  was  stronger  and  more  practical  in  its  effects  than 
the  compassion  which  our  nation  felt  for  the  Protestants  of  Holland  in 
the  day  of  the  Spanish  fury,  or  for  the  Huguenots  in  the  days  of  the 
dragonnades;  for  the  patriots  of  the  Tyrol,  of  Hungary,  of  Naples;  for 
the  slaves  of  South  Carolina ;  for  the  victims  of  Turkish  cruelty  in  Greece 
and  of  Eussian  cruelty  in  Poland.  The  silken  bonds  of  common 


THE  POLITICS  OF  LABOR  177 

pleasures  and  tastes,  which  seem  trifling  enough  at  the  moment,  proved 
stronger  under  the  test  than  the  ties  of  religious  faith  or  political  creed; 
and  while  the  Democrats  of  Paris  were  appealing  almost  in  vain  to  the 
brotherhood  which,  according  to  the  Jacobin  program,  was  to  unite 
against  their  tyrants  all  the  peoples  of  Europe,  there  was  nothing 
fictitious  or  shallow  in  the  sentiment  of  class  fraternity  which  instantly 
and  spontaneously  enlisted  the  gentry  of  Great  Britain  in  determined 
and  implacable  hostility  to  the  French  Republic." 

Mr.  Trcvelyan  probably  lays  too  much  stress  on  the  purely 
sentimental  phase  of  the  matter,  and  too  little  on  the  com- 
munity of  interest  and  the  dread  on  the  part  of  the  British 
upper  class  that  the  example  of  a  successful  French  Republic 
might  become  contagious  and  inspire  a  similar  attack  on 
their  own  unjust  privileges.  But  be  this  as  it  may, 
whether  the  bonds  between  the  wealthy  and  influential  castes 
of  all  countries  are  those  of  instinctive  sympathy  or  keen- 
sighted  self-interest  or  both,  there  is  no  question  that  the  soli- 
darity of  capitalism  thus  created  is  one  of  the  most  formid- 
able influences  with  which  the  movement  for  the  rights  of 
labor  has  to  contend.  The  commercial  and  financial  interests 
of  the  principal  nations  are  so  interwoven,  and  the  associa- 
tions between  the  leisured  and  moneyed  classes  so  much  closer 
than  formerly,  owing  to  the  facility  of  travel  and  communica- 
tion, that  an  international  public  opinion,  which  is  distinctively 
a  class  opinion,  has  grown  up,  and  exercises  a  tremendous 
pressure  upon  local  movements.  Voiced  in  the  great  capit. 
alistic  newspapers,  and  through  that  monopoly-machine,  the 
Atlantic  cable,  its  influence  is  powerfully  felt  in  antagonism 
to  every  agitation  for  popular  rights.  Thus  the  Irish  national 
movement — which  is  first  and  foremost  a  movement  for  indus- 
trial reform — has  been  systematically  misrepresented,  its  lead- 
ers have  been  maligned,  its  reverses  magnified,  and  the  abuses 
and  drawbacks  incidental  to  any  widespread  popular  agitation 
grossly  exaggerated.  This  was  more  especially  the  case  dur- 
ing its  earlier  stages  ;  since  it  has  obtained  a  headway  which 
presages  success  these  tactics  are  no  longer  available,  though 
the  old  animus  is  still  noticeable. 

International  capitalistic  opinion  is  largely  responsible  for 


178  THE  POLITICS  OF  LABOR. 

the  infatuated  financial  policy  pursued  by  the  American 
government  during  the  war  of  the  Rebellion  and  subsequently, 
by  which  the  bondholders  were  enriched  by  receiving  pay- 
ment in  gold  for  advances  made  in  depreciated  currency. 
The  capitalists  of  America,  in  any  contest  with  the  masses, 
can  always  count  on  receiving  the  moral  support  of  the  ruling 
classes  abroad,  and  in  return  are  always  ready  to  throw  their 
influence  into  the  scale  with  that  of  the  opponents  of  social 
reform  elsewhere.  In  short,  whenever  and  wherever  through- 
out the  civilized  world  there  is  a  movement  on  the  part  of 
the  oppressed  to  secure  a  measure  of  justice,  the  forces  of 
opinion  are  concentrated  and  brought  to  bear  against  it.  The 
whole  power  and  pressure  of  international  capitalism,  acting 
though  a  thousand  channels  of  influence,  is  directed  to  crush  it. 

The  forces  of  labor,  on  the  contrary,  have  in  the  past  been 
divided  by  countless  lines  of  cleavage  in  all  directions,  by 
differences  of  party,  nation,  and  creed,  of  sex  and  color,  of  oc- 
cupation and  locality ;  by  jealousies  between  skilled  and  un- 
skilled brain  and  manual  workers ;  and  by  finely-drawn  grades 
and  distinctions  between  those  of  the  same  trade.  National 
and  race  differences,  and  the  prejudices  attaching  to  them,  are 
much  more  strongly  marked  among  the  working-class  than 
among  the  wealthy.  It  is  a  frequent  remark  that  travel, 
education,  and  social  intercourse  have  done  much  to  assimi- 
late the  richer  elements  of  American  and  European  society. 
The  angles  of  national  prejudice  have  been  rubbed  off.  The 
old-fashioned  antipathies  between  Briton  and  Frenchman^ 
American  and  European  have  subsided  under  the  influence 
of  a  common  caste  feeling  and  a  similar  standard  of  conven- 
tional polish.  The  "  gentlemen  "  of  one  country  differ  much 
less  from  those  of  another  in  dress,  demeanor,  and  modes  of 
thought  than  do  the  working-classes,  among  whom,  excepting 
in  so  far  as  they  may  have  been  influenced  by  Socialistic 
teaching,  the  "foreigner"  is  generally  regarded  as  an  enemy. 

John  Leech's  often-quoted  illustration  of  life  in  the  English 
mining  district— "  *  Who  is  'e,  Bill?'  <A  stranger.'  «  'Eave 
arf  a  brick  at  'im  ! '  "  is  hardly  an  overdrawn  exemplification 


POLITICS  OF  LABOR.  1*79 

of  the  feeling  that  even  now  obtains  among  the  less-educated 
element  of  the  working-class,  though  it  may  not  find  expres- 
sion in  so  crude  and  summary  a  fashion.  When,  under  the 
stress  of  the  terrible  Irish  famine  in  1847  and  the  subsequent 
period  of  impoverishment,  the  exiled  Irish  peasantry  swarmed 
into  the  British  industrial  centers  by  the  hundred  thousand, 
they  endured  cruel  persecution  at  the  hands  of  English  and 
Scotch  working-men.  Instead  of  recognizing  the  ties  of 
common  interest,  a  narrow-minded  national  and  sectarian 
animosity  against  the  new-comers  was  aroused.  The  anti- 
pathies of  race  and  religion  kept  them  from  seeing  that  the 
unwelcome  competition  of  the  Irish  was  caused  by  the  re- 
lentless oppression  of  landlordism  ;  that  the  system  which 
they,  in  common  with  other  classes  of  Englishmen,  had  sus- 
tained in  Ireland  was  responsible  for  the  exodus.  In  place 
of  seeking  to  destroy  the  cause,  they  directed  all  their  antag- 
onism against  the  victims  who,  like  themselves,  were  sufferers 
from  the  greed  and  tyranny  of  land-monopolists.  In  the 
United  States  the  same  jealousy  of  the  native-born  against 
foreigners,  and  more  especially  against  the  Irish,  found  vent 
in  the  aptly-named  Know-Nothing  movement. 

That  the  condition  of  both  English  and  American  labor 
was  for  the  time  rendered  less  endurable  by  the  Irish 
influx,  and  the  increased  stress  of  competition,  is  undeniable. 
It  was  well  that  it  should  be  so.  The  lesson  was  needed  then  as 
it  is  needed  to  day,  to  teach  us  that  the  wrongs  perpetrated  upon 
the  toiling  poor  in  one  land  inevitably  react  upon  the  condition 
of  labor  elsewhere — that  we  cannot,  by  any  measure  short  of 
the  destruction  of  the  causes  of  poverty  wherever  they  exist, 
secure  a  selfish  immunity  from  their  operation.  When  it  is 
endeavored  to  shut  out  by  a  protective  tariff  the  products  of 
"  the  pauper  labor  of  Europe,"  the  American  working-man  is 
confronted  by  the  pauper  laborer  himself,  transported  by  the 
million  to  American  soil,  to  compete  with  him  for  his  place 
at  the  loom,  by  the  forge,  and  in  the  mine  ;  to  crowd  the  reek- 
ing tenement-house,  and  swell  the  population  of  overgrown 
cities.  What  an  insult  to  the  intelligence  of  the  mass  is  this 


i 


POLITICS  OF  LA&O&. 


cry  against  the  "  pauper  labor  of  Europe  !  "  Had  America 
been  true  to  her  democratic  traditions  there  would  be  no 
paupers  in  Europe.  No  system  of  class  prerogative  could 
have  withstood  the  example  and  influence  of  a  genuine 
democracy  with  equal  rights  for  all.  And  Vno  amount  of 
foreign  immigration  could  injure  the  American  working-man, 
if  monopoly  did  not  bar  access  to  the  soil  and  control  every 
avenue  of  employment^ 

\~The  endeavor  to  organize  labor  has  developed  not  a  little 
friction  between  the  skilled  and  the  unskilled  classes.  The 
spirit  of  selfishness,  which  seeks  only  the  advancement  of 
some  isolated  branch  of  industry,  strongly  pervades  many 
unions.  "  I  do  not  believe  in  putting  a  $3  a  day  man  in  the 
same  organization  with  a  $1  a  day  man,  and  to  our  isolation 
from  other  organizations  we  owe  our  success,"  said  Peter  M. 
Arthur,  chief  of  the  Brotherhood  of  Locomotive  Engineers. 

This  is  the  old  characteristic  appeal  to  selfishness,  and  pur- 
blind, narrow-minded  selfishness  at  that  —  the  familiar  "  every 
man  for  himself,  and  the  devil  take  the  hindmost  "  of  individ- 
ualism, addressed  to  a  would-be  aristocracy  of  labor.  It  is 
not  easy,  nor  is  it  in  fact  possible,  to  draw  any  well-defined 
line  between  skilled  and  unskilled  labor.  The  two  classes 
shade  imperceptibly  into  each  other.  Among  the  mass  known 
as  unskilled,  there  are  always  a  large  number  who  have  a 
half-training  in  some  line  of  mechanical  industry,  who,  at  a 
pinch,  can  do  the  rougher  and  less  finished  parts  of  the  work 
of  a  skilled  mechanic.  They  cannot  command  mechanic's 
pay,  because  they  are  not  up  to  the  standard  of  the  trade 
unions  ;  but  let  a  strike  of  carpenters  or  machinists  or  brick- 
layers occur,  and  the  employers  of  labor  can  often  obtain 
from  these  half-trained  laborers  enough  men  to  enable  them 
to  carry  on  their  work.  In  proportion  as  so-called  unskilled 
labor  is  organized  and  brought  into  close  affiliation  with 
skilled  labor,  the  latter  can  prevent  their  places  being  taken 
by  men  having  a  rudimentary  or  partial  knowledge  of  their 
trade.  But  if  a  policy  of  trade  isolation  were  the  rule,  each 
trade  looking  out  for  itself  only,  and  the  unskilled  and  half- 


POLITICS  OF  LABOR.  181 

skilled  being  at  the  mercy  of  competition,  the  skilled  mechan- 
ics would  very  soon  find  out  that  their  power  to  sustain 
themselves  was  greatly  weakened.  Leave  the  man  with  a 
smattering  knowledge  of  carpentry  or  printing  or  black- 
smithing,  the  jack-of-all-trades,  with  a  natural  bent  for  turn- 
ing his  hand  to  anything,  and  making  himself  generally  use- 
ful, free  to  compete  with  the  skilled  artisan,  and  take  his 
place  in  the  case  of  labor  troubles,  as  he  would  be  if  the 
spirit  of  trade  exclusiveness  prevailed  and  the  skilled  laborer 
refused  to  make  common  cause  with  the  unskilled,  and  the 
isolated  union  of  any  special  branch  would  soon  find  out  class 
selfishness  to  be  as  mistaken  a  policy  as  personal  selfishness. 
In  helping  to  protect  the  unskilled  in  their  rights,  as  street- 
car employes,  teamsters,  railroad  laborers,  and  similar  voca- 
tions, the  mechanic  and  artisan  are  protecting  themselves 
from  the  competition  of  those  belonging  to  the  ranks  of  the 
unskilled,  who  could,  in  an  emergency,  do  their  work. 

The  skilled  mechanic  often  needs  the  co-operation  of  or- 
ganized labor  as  a  whole  in  his  contests  with  capitalism.  The 
success  of  the  most  potent  weapon  against  an  unfair  em- 
ployer— the  boycott — absolutely  depends  on  the  action  of  a 
numerous  and  widely-spread  body  outside  of  the  particular 
industry  concerned.  No  isolated  trade-union,  however  pow- 
erful, can  bring  this  instrument  effectively  to  bear  upon  an 
oppressor. 

Again,  the  rate  of  wages  paid  to  one  class  of  workers  in- 
fallibly affects  the  rest  in  more  ways  than  one.  Not  only 
does  it  tend  to  level  the  average  up  or  down,  by  affording  a 
criterion  and  standard  of  comparison  by  which  employers  in 
other  departments  are  guided,  but  it  acts  either  as  an  incen- 
tive or  a  deterrent  in  the  choice  of  a  calling.  A  consider- 
able and  permanent  reduction  in  the  pay  of  unskilled  labor 
would  very  soon  so  intensify  the  pressure  of  competition  on 
the  part  of  the  young,  to  obtain  a  training  in  the  better 
remunerated  branches,  that  not  even  the  closest  trade-union 
could  maintain  the  ratfi^ 

This  holds  true  also  with  regard  to  the  labor  of  women. 


182  THE  POLITICS  OF  LABOR. 

There  is  no  class  who  feel  more  keenly  the  disabilities  of  com- 
petition, or  who  have  been  reduced  to  more  abject  servitude 
from  the  want  of  united  action  than  female  workers.  Their 
low  rate  of  pay  necessarily  and  inevitably  reacts  upon  male 
labor.  At  first  sight  it  might  be  supposed  that  the  miserably 
inadequate  wages  received  by  women  in  factories  and  stores 
could  not  in  any  possible  way  affect  the  position  of  the  car- 
penter, the  blacksmith,  or  those  of  other  trades  in  which 
women  cannot  engage.  A  little  reflection  will  show  this  to 
be  a  mistaken  idea.  The  extensive  employment  of  poorly 
paid  female  labor  in  tho  avocations  open  to  men  and  women 
alike,  results  in  reducing  the  pay  of  the  men.  The  male 
factory  operative,  salesman,  clerk,  or  telegrapher,  cannot  ob- 
tain decent  living  wages  so  long  as  women  are  able  and 
willing  to  work  at  the  same  employments  at  a  much  lower 
figure.  What  is  the  consequence  ?  Naturally,  men  who  find 
themselves  in  this  position  seek  other  employments ;  youths 
choosing  a  trade  avoid  these  underpaid  industries  to  a 
greater  extent  than  they  would  otherwise  do,  and  give  the 
preference  to  others  in  which  the  market  is  not  flooded  by 
poorly  paid  and  unorganized  female  workers.  As  women,  be- 
cause of  their  willingness  to  work  cheajjly,  crowd  out  men 
from  the  lighter  callings,  the  competition  in  those  depart- 
ments of  labor  still  purely  masculine  is  necessarily  increased, 
organization  rendered  more  difficult  and  less  effective,  arid 
the  number  of  non-unionists  multiplied.  There  is  no  laborer, 
therefore,  however  remote  his  particular  trade  may  seem  to 
be  from  "  woman's  sphere,"  and  however  secure  from  in- 
vasion by  low-priced  female  labor,  but  has  an  interest  in 
seeing  women's  wages  increased,  and  women  enrolled  in  the 
ranks  of  organized  labor.  It  is  not  so  many  years  since  the 
feeling  largely  prevailed  among  trade-unionists  that  the  way 
to  deal  with  the  difficulty  was  to  exclude  the  female  worker 
from  their  callings.  It  is  creditable  to  the  growing  intelli- 
gence of  wage-earners  that  a  more  chivalrous,  reasonable,  and 
humane  spirit  now  prevails,  and  that  instead  of  seeking  un- 
fairly to  restrict  the  scope  of  female  labor,  the  demand  is  now 
for  "  equal  pay  for  equal  work." 


THE  POLITICS  OF  LABOR.  183 

The  fatal  error  in  the  complacent  self-sufficiency  of  trades- 
unionism  is  its  failure  to  recognize  the  utter  inadequacy  of  its 
methods  to  permanently  protect  the  laborer  against  the  con- 
sequences of  monopoly,  centralization,  and  the  improvement 
of  labor-saving  machinery.  Notwithstanding  that  the  skill 
and  training  of  one  handicraft  after  another  has  been  ren- 
dered almost  or  quite  valueless  by  the  perfection  to  which 
mechanical  appliances  have  been  brought,  displacing  large 
numbers  of  artisans,  and  reducing  others  to  the  position  of 
mere  drudges  and  machine-tenders,  there  are  those  who  can 
not  or  will  not  see  that  the  only  adequate  remedy  is  the 
union  of  all  workers  for  the,  overthrow  of  the  wage  system  ; 
and  by  obtaining  control  of  the  land,  machinery,  and  other 
means  of  production,  securing  to  labor  the  gains  now  absorbed 
in  increasing  measure  by  capitalism.  Monopoly  and  com- 
petition make  man  the  slave  of  the  machine  ;  unless  the 
worker,  under  the  increasing  pressure  caused  by  further  in. 
ventions  and  denser  population,  is  to  sink  into  yet  more 
hopeless  degradation,  social  re-adjustment  must  reverse  the 
conditions  and  make  "  the  machine  the  slave  of  the  man." 

The  large  class  of  brain-workers,  who  exercise  an  immense 
influence,  have  not,  as  a  rule,  realized  that  the  emancipation 
of  labor  ought  to  have  as  much  interest  for  them  as  for  the 
manual  toiler.  They  have  held  aloof  from  the  Labor  Reform 
movement  as  being  something  that  did  not  concern  them — 
partly  from  a  feeling  of  false  pride  and  superior  social  posi- 
tion, and  partly  from  a  fear  that  to  identify  themselves  with 
it  would  endanger  their  prospects.  Setting  aside  for  the 
moment  the  considerations  of  humanity  and  sympathy  with 
a  just  cause,  and  looking  at  the  matter  from  a  standpoint  of 
pure  self-interest,  there  is  no  class  which  stands  more  in  need 
of  the  temporary  benefits  of  organization  and  has  more  to 
gain  by  the  permanent  and  thorough  reformation  of  the  in- 
dustrial system  than  the  intellectual  proletariat. 

The  position  of  the  vast  majority  of  journalists,  sten- 
ographers, school-teachers,  book-keepers,  copyists,  clerks, 
agents,  and  the  like>  is  even  worse  than  that  of  the  average 


184  ?Hfi  POLITICS  OP  LABO&. 

mechanic.  Their  earnings  are  frequently  less,  their  hours 
longer,  and  their  subserviency  to  their  employers  more 
abject.  No  organization  protects  them  from  the  effects  of 
unlimited  competition.  There  is  everywhere  a  host  of  men 
and  women,  young  and  old,  of  all  degrees  of  talent  and  capac- 
ity, seeking  employment  in  these  callings.  They  jostle  each 
other  in  shoals  whenever  a  vacant  situation  is  advertised, 
no  matter  how  small  the  salary.  They  advertise  their  own 
degradation,  and  tempt  the  unfair  employer  to  grind  them 
into  the  dust  by  the  frequent  announcement,  "  employment 
an  object  rather  than  salary."  Brains  without  means  are  a 
drug  in  the  labor  market  quite  as  much  as  hands,  and  there  is 
no  sort  of  check  such  as  that  interposed  by  trade-unionism  to 
the  operation  of  the  law  of  supply  and  demand. 

All  large  publishing  centers  abound  with  literary  hacks, 
well  educated  and  clever,  who,  being  without  other  resources 
than  their  brains  and  pens,  are  as  completely  at  the  mercy  of 
the  capitalist  as  any  member  of  an  unorganized  trade  when 
brought  into  competition  with  cheap  labor.  They  will  write 
anything  to  order  for  a  pittance.  They  peddle  articles  and 
poems  round  the  newspaper  and  magazine  offices  for  anything 
they  can  get.  Publishers  drive  hard  bargains  with  them, 
beat  them  down  to  starvation  prices,  and  frequently  realize 
thousands  or  tens  of  thousands  of  dollars  on  works  which 
have  earned  for  the  writers  nothing  more  than  a  meager  sub- 
sistence during  the  time  they  were  actually  engaged  in  their 
production.  Yet  how  few  brain  workers,  despite  the  intel- 
lect on  which  they  pride  themselves,  can  see  that  their 
grievances  and  disabilities  are  the  same  as  those  of  the 
manual  laborer !  They  will  grumble  among  themselves  about 
the  unappreciative  public,  and  the  miserably  underpaid 
position  of  intellectual  labor,  but  the  idea  of  combining  to  fix 
a  fair  price  for  their  work  never  enters  their  heads.  Still  less 
have  they  realized  the  need  of  uniting  with  other  classes  of 
workers  to  alter  the  social  conditions  which  place  labor, 
whether  of  brain  or  of  muscle,  at  the  mercy  of  wealth.  In  ques- 
tions between  the  toiler  and  the  capitalist,  most  of  them  os- 
tentatiously take  the  side  of  capitalism. 


ftifi  POLITICS  OF  LABO&.    *  185 

\The  extent  to  which  the  substitution  of  machinery  for 
hand-work  has  revolutionized  the  industrial  system  and  inten- 
sified competition  may  be  gathered  from  the  report  of  the 
United  States  Labor  Bureau  for  1886,  in  which  it  is  stated 
that  the  mechanical  industries  of  the  country  are  carried  on 
by  steam  and  water  power  representing  in  round  numbers 
3,500,000  horse  power,  each  horse  power  equaling  the  mus- 
cular labor  of  six  men ;  that  is  to  say,  if  men  were  employed 
to  furnish  the  power  to  carry  on  these  industries,  it  would 
require  twenty-one  million  men,  representing  a  population  of 
105,000,000  to  do  the  work  now  actually  performed  by 
4,000,000  representing  a  population  of  20,000.000.  The  same 
authority  estimated  the  total  number  of  workers  out  of  em- 
ployment during  1885  at  998,839.  But  the  basis  on  which 
this  latter  calculation  is  made,  is  an  obviously  misleading  one, 
as  the  result  is  arrived  at  by  taking  only  the  total  of  the  estab- 
lishments, such  as  factories,  mines,  etc.,  which  were  absolutely 
or  partially  idle  during  the  year.].  It  leaves  out  of  sight  the 
large  number  of  working-men  not  having  regular  employment 
or  places  open  for  them  in  a  particular  establishment  as  soon 
as  work  is  resumed.  As  a  calculation  of  the  number  of  em- 
ployes laid  off  owing  to  hard  times,  it  may  be  correct ;  but 
manifestly  a  statement  of  the  number  of  working-people 
thrown  out  of  employment  by  the  shutting  down  of  factories 
and  mines  is  very  different  from  and  less  comprehensive 
than  an  estimate  of  the  total  unemployed  labor  force.  But 
understated  as  it  clearly  is,  the  fact  that  one  million  workers 
at  least  were  in  enforced  idleness,  while  four  million  more 
were  doing  the  work  which,  prior  to  the  era  of  mechanical 
expansion,  would  have  required  the  labor  of  twenty-one 
million,  is  sufficient  to  show  that  organization  on  the  lines  of 
trades-unionism  is  powerless  to  deal  with  the  altered  conditions 
caused  by  the  perfection  of  labor-saving  machinery.  So  far, 
machinery  has  benefited  capitalism  only  at  the  expense  of 
labor.  Considered  as  a  consumer  indeed,  the  laborer  benefits 
by  cheapness  of  production,  but  it  is  a  good  deal  like  the  ad- 
vantage which  the  Irishman  of  the  story  received  from  length- 


186  THE  POLITICS  OF  LABOB. 

ening  his  blanket  by  sewing  to  the  top  the  strip  which  ha 
had  cut  from  the  bottom,  so  as  to  make  it  long  enough  at  both 
ends.  Where  is  the  advantage  of  cheapness  of  production  to 
the  army  of  the  unemployed  and  half-employed,  or  to  those 
whose  labor  has  been  so  cheapened  by  competition  that  their 
purchasing  power  is  correspondingly  lessened? 

The  cause  of  the  trouble  we  are  told  is  "  over-production." 
The  workers  of  the  world,  according  to  this  theory,  have  been 
too  industrious.  By  their  superfluous  enei'gy  there  have 
been  accumulated  vast  surplus  stocks  of  food,  clothing,  fuel, 
and  manufactured  articles  of  every  description  for  use  and 
ornament,  for  necessity  and  luxury.  Periodically  there  is  a 
glut  of  every  salable  commodity,  and  in  order  to  restore  the 
equilibrium  between  demand  and  supply,  production  and 
consumption,  mills,  factories,  and  mines  are  shut  down  or  run 
on  short  time,  or  the  force  of  workers  is  reduced.  Industry  in 
many  departments  is  brought  almost  to  a  standstill.  Great 
distress  in  consequence  prevails  among  multitudes  thus 
suddenly  deprived  of  the  means  of  livelihood,  and  many 
others  who  are  fortunately  able  to  keep  the  wolf  from  the 
door  find  their  income  materially  reduced,  or  their  small 
savings,  accumulated  during  more  prosperous  years,  gradually 
melting  away.  That  destitution  among  workers  should  not 
only  co-exist  with  a  superfluity  of  the  articles  produced  by 
their  industry,  but  should  actually  be  caused  by  it,  is  a  suffi- 
cient proof  of  the  deep-seated  injustice  of  the  present  rela- 
tions between  labor  and  capitalism.  '  Under  a  fair  system  of 
distribution  there  could  be  no  such  thing  as  over-production. 
Still  less  could  poverty  be  caused  by  it.  The  greater  the 
production  the  more  prosperity  would  be  enjoyed  by  the 
industrious  classes. 

Under  the  wages  system,  the  worker  is  dependent  on  the 
capitalist-employer,/and  he  in  turn  on  the  purchasing  power 
of  communities  largely  composed  of  other  wage-workers. 
The  crude  and  drastic  remedy  of  diminished  production 
implies  a  considerable  diminution  of  the  amounts  paid  thorn 
as  wages,  and  a  consequent  diminution  of  their  purchasing 


THE  POLITICS  OF  LABOR.  187 

poweiv  Thus  the  evil  perpetuates  itself.  For  instance,  the 
boot  and  shoe  manufacturer,  having  a  surplus  stock  that  he 
cannot  dispose  of,  shuts  down ;  the  woolen  manufacturer,  and 
the  hat  manufacturer  do  the  same.  But  the  employes  of  the 
one  are  the  customers  of  the  other.  The  hatters  and  woolen 
mill  operatives  have  less  money  than  ever  with  which  to  buy 
boots  and  shoes,  and  the  shoemakers  must  make  their  old 
clothing,  blankets,  and  hats  last  them  for  some  time  longer. 
And  so  it  goes  all  round,  and  the  very  steps  taken  by  indi- 
vidual employers  to  protect  themselves  from  the  consequences 
of  stagnation  tend  to  prolong  and  intensify  it.  It  is  always 
it  her  a  feast  or  a  famine,  too  much  work  or  not  enough.  As 
boon  as  "hard  times"  are  fairly  over,  a  boom  in  productive 
industry  takes  place.  Merchants'  stocks  are  exhausted  and 
orders  come  pouring  in  to  the  manufacturers.  Mills,  factories, 
and  mines  are  worked  to  their  utmost  capacity ;  prices  go 
steadily  up,  and  so,  after  an  interval,  do  wages.  Under  the 
stimulus  of  an  increased  demand  new  enterprises  are  under- 
taken. In  place  of  scarcity  of  employment  there  is  abundant 
work  for  all.  Employers,  in  their  eagerness  to  "  make  hay 
while  the  sun  shines,"  run  their  workshops  and  factories 
night  and  day.  The  long  hours  of  toil  are  further  lengthened 
by  inducements  being  held  out  to  employes  to  work  over-time. 
Under  the  temptation  of  extra  pay,  or  the  fear  of  offending  their 
employers  by  a  refusal,  men  work  twelve  or  fifteen  hours  a 
day,  allowing  themselves  barely  time  for  needed  rest  and  re- 
freshment, and  no  time  whatever  for  mental  improvement 
or  social  recreation.  The  wheels  of  industry  and  commerce 
revolve  at  high  pressure,  and  short-sighted  politicians  and 
publicists  are  loud  in  their  congratulations  on  the  prosperity 
of  the  country,  ignoring  entirely  the  fact  that  all  this  crowding 
on  of  sail  and  expenditure  of  surplus  productive  energy  is 
simply  preparing  the  way  for  the  inevitable  return  of  hard 
times.  The  inflation  period  is  generally  of  short  duration. 
Present  demands  are  soon  supplied,  and  goods  again  begin  to 
accumulate  in  the  factories  and  warehouses.  The  competition 
between  producers  is  no  longer  as  to  which  shall  turn  out 


188  THE  POLITICS  OF  LABOE. 

goods  most  rapidly  and  in  greatest  volume,  but  which  shall 
sell  the  cheapest.  Production  slackens,  wages  fall,  employes 
are  discharged.  Enforced  economy  diminishes  the  purchasing 
power  and  causes  further  stringency  and  greater  distress 
among  workers,  and  so  the  vicious  circle  is  completed.  Those 
who,  reluctantly  in  some  cases  arid  willingly  in  others, 
crowded  two  days'  work  into  one,  now  think  themselves 
fortunate  to  obtain  one  day's  work  in  two. 

These  recurring  periods  of  inflation  and  stringency  teach 
the  absolute  inadequacy  of  private  enterprise,  and  supply  and 
demand,  for  the  regulation  of  production  and  distribution. 
Each  manufacturer  or  association  of  manufacturers  act  strict- 
ly in  their  own  interests  in  suspending  or  slackening  produc- 
tion during  a  period  of  stagnation,  and  in  crowding  on  sail 
when  times  mend  ;  yet  the  result  is  adverse  to  the  interests 
of  society  as  a  whole.  Only  by  a  systematized  organization 
of  industry  regulating  production  on  the  basis  of  the  needs  of 
the  community,  and  distributing  the  work  to  be  done  in  sup- 
plying those  needs  more  evenly  in  point  of  time  can  the  alter- 
nation of  prosperity  and  depression  be  prevented. 

The  eight-hour  movement  is  a  most  important  step  to- 
wards such  a  general  re-adjustment  of  production  and  distri- 
bution, as  well  as  a  temporary  palliative  for  some  of  the  worst 
evils  of  the  competitive  system.  The  establishment  of  an 
eight-hour  working  day  would,  in  most  industries,  secure  an 
opportunity  to  work  for  all.  Ten  hours  being,  as  a  rule,  the 
present  day's  labor,  the  substitution  of  eight  would  mean, 
either  the  addition  to  the  present  working  force  of  one-fourth, 
if  the  existing  rate  of  production  were  to  be  maintained,  or 
the  lessening  of  production  by  one-fifth  were  no  increase  made 
in  the  number  of  workers.  No  doubt  it  would  operate  to  a 
partial  extent  in  both  directions.  An  increase  of  the  present 
labor  force  by  one-fourth  would  hardly  be  possible,  but  it 
would  largely  exhaust  the  reserve  force  of  unemployed  labor, 
whose  competition  tends  to  the  reduction  of  wages;  and  the 
limitation  of  production  resulting  where  the  deficiency  was 
not  macie  up  from  this  source,  would  be  the  Ibest  guarantee 


THE  POLITICS  OF  LABOR.  189 

against  glutted  markets  and  undue  competition.  The  tempo- 
rary individual  loss  ;  of  pay  which  would  be  sustained  in  many 
branches  is  the  bugbear  in  the  minds  of  many,  which  prevents 
their  seeing  the  immense  ultimate  gain  of  shorter  hours.  Tak- 
ing the  working-class  as  a  whole,  there  would  not  be  even  a 
temporary  loss  and  even  supposing  wages  were  never  raised 
above  the  present  hour-rate,  there  would  be  no  permanent 
loss.  When  the  unemployed  and  partially  employed  are  con- 
sidered and  an  average  struck,  it  will  be  found  that  eight 
hours  all  round  is  as  much  work  as  the  toiler  can  get.  It  is 
really  not  a  question  of  the  working-class,  as  a  whole,  working 
less  or  more,  but  of  the  even  distribution  of  what  work  there 
is.  We  already  have  not,  indeed,  shorter  hours,  but  an  in- 
crease of  the  number  who  cannot  count  on  steady  employ- 
ment, and  a  lessening  of  the  average  receipts,  owing  to  the 
loss  of  opportunities  to  labor.  The  eight-hour  movement,  if 
successful,  would  equalize  this  decrease.  The  system  of  long 
hours,  when  it  suits  the  convenience  of  employers,  and  short 
hours  or  no  hours  at  all  for  many  as  a  direct  consequence,  is 
the  worst  possible  that  could  be  devised  in  labor's  interests. 
If  men  refused  to  work  for  more  than  eight  hours,  they 
would  not  so  often  be  told  a  little  later  on,  that  there  was  no 
work  for  them. 

Now  even  if  what  some  of  the  opponents  of  this  great 
reform  say  were  true,  "  that  the  laborer  could  not  obtain  as 
much  for  eight  hours,  work  as  he  now  gets  for  ten, "  this  would 
be  a  desirable  thing.  It  would  certainly  be  to  the  advantage 
of  the  laborer  to  have  steady  and  certain  work  for  eight  hours 
daily,  even  at  the  same  rate  of  pay  per  hour  as  at  present, 
rather  than  ten  hours  for  a  year  or  two  with  a  shut  down  for 
several  weeks  or  months  sprung  on  him  unexpectedly.  But 
it  is  not  true  that  the  pay  would  not  be  increased.  If  there 
is  anything  at  all  in  the  doctrine  of  supply  and  demand,  it  fol- 
lows that  by  limiting  the  supply  of  labor,  as  the  eight-hour 
system  would  do,  and  so  bringing  it  down  tothe  level  of  the  de- 
mand, the  power  of  the  laborer  to  obtain  higher  wages  would  be 
thereby  increased.  Experience  shows  that  the  trades  in  which 


190  THE  POLITICS  OF  LABOR. 

the  hours  are  shortest  are  the  best  paid.  The  natural  effect 
of  limiting  the  time  worked  by  each  laborer  is  to  increase  the 
market  value  of  his  services  just  as  surely  as  the  arbitrary 
limit  put  on  the  production  of  coal  or  iron  or  cotton  goods 
keeps  up  the  prices. 

Only  by  a  united  general  movement,  including  the  great 
bulk  of  the  laboring-classes,  can  the  shortening  of  the  hours 
of  toil  be  effected.  Once  secured,  the  now  superfluous  labor- 
ers, instead  of  being  a  standing  menace  to  employed  workmen, 
would  become  allies  and  not  competitors.  Organized  laborers, 
as  a  whole,  would  secure  a  degree  of  control  over  the  distribu- 
tion of  the  products  of  industry  such  as  it  could  obtain  in 
no  other  way  under  the  wages  system.  And,  after  all,  the 
question  between  present  conditions  and  the  socialism  of  the 
future  is  simply  one  of  degree.  Labor,  in  fixing  its  own  remu- 
neration, virtually  fixes  the  share  of  capitalism  in  the  joint 
product.  By  advancing  step  by  step  from  partial  to  full  con- 
trol, and  by  such  measures  as  shorter  hours  and  arbitration  on 
the  basis  of  a  recognition  of  labor's  right  to  a  specified  share 
in  the  proceeds,  the  point  will  at  length  be  reached  where  the 
"  share"  of  capitalism  can  be  minimized  to  the  amount  fairly 
due  for  labor  of  superintendence.  The  socialization  of  capital 
will  then  be  an  accomplished  fact. 

It  is  often  assumed  that  the  powerful  agricultural  interest 
is  solidly  arrayed  against  Labor  Reform,  that  the  "  territo- 
rial democracy  "  will  to  a  man  oppose  the  nationalization  of 
the  land,  which  underlies  all  other  and  less  important  though 
perhaps  more  immediately  attainable  phases  of  social  re- 
adjustment. Those  who  criticise  the  Labor  Reform  move- 
ment on  this  ground  are  right  in  calling  attention  to  a  point 
which  has  been  too  frequently  overlooked,  namely,  that  the 
most  important  industry  is  that  of  agriculture,  and  that  any 
popular  movement,  to  be  successful,  must  enlist  the  sympathy 
and  co-operation  of  the  tillers  of  the  soil.  But  they  are  wrong 
in  supposing  that  the  true  interests  of  the  urban  laborers  and 
those  of  the  farmers  are  so  far  apart  that  they  cannot  in  the 
future  act  together.  Far  from  being  a  crushing  argument 


THE  POLITICS  OF  LABOR.  191 

against  the  possibility  of  a  succesful  political  agitation,  the 
large  representation  and  powerful  influence  of  the  farming 
community  in  politics  is  one  of  the  strongest  grounds  for 
hope. 

The  great  majority  of  farmers  are  in  every  sense  of  the 
word  working-men,  arid  as  such  have  every  reason  to  sym- 
pathize with  the  wage-earner  of  the  cities  rather  than  with 
the  capitalist  class.  They  are  subject  to  many  of  the  same 
grievances  which  press  so  hardly  upon  city  labor.  All  the  forms 
of  monopoly  combine  to  tax  the  farmer's  industry  just  as  they 
do  that  of  the  citizen,  and  some  of  them  bear  down  far  harder 
on  htm  than  on  any  other  class.  Railroad  monopoly  in  par- 
ticular is  the  means  of  robbing  the  agricultural  producer  of  a 
very  large  portion  of  his  earnings.  It  was  among  the 
farmers  that  the  first  strong  feeling  of  hostility  to  the  power 
of  the  great  railroad  lines  to  levy  taxes  at  will  upon  industry 
was  developed.  The  question  of  the  control  or  ownership  of 
railroads  by  the  people  is  one  which  affects  the  farmers  in  a 
more  vital  degree  than  it  does  the  city  working-man.  The 
money  monopoly  is  another  matter  in  which  farmers 
and  other  workingmen  have  mutual  interests  opposed  to  those 
of  the  capitalists,  usurers,  and  speculators.  When  by  basing 
money  upon  gold  the  supply  is  kept  artificially  scarce  and 
dear,  who  suffers  more  than  the  farmer  ?  The  scarcity  of 
money  and  the  exorbitantly  high  rate  of  interest  have  brought 
absolute  ruin  to  many  a  once  prosperous  farmer,  and  reduced 
many  others  to  hopeless  bondage  to  the  mortgage-holder. 
When  times  are  dull  owing  to  the  scarcity  of  money,  the 
farmer  is  unable  to  sell  his  wheat  or  his  cattle  at  a  fair  price. 
He  must  live  and  pay  running  expenses,  and  is  obliged  to  resort 
to  the  usurer.  Who  should  be  more  anxious  to  bring  aboftt 
the  establishment  of  a  national  currency,  adequate  in  volume 
to  the  demands  of  trade,  which  the  dealers  in  money  could 
not  contract  and  expand  at  will,  than  the  farmer? 

There  is  no  doubt  a  measure  of  force  in  the  argument  that 
rural  landowners  will  not  be  favorably  disposed  towards  the 
proposal  to  lay  the  whole  burden  of  taxation  upon  the  soil. 


192  THE  POLITICS  OF  LABOR. 

Let  us  give  all  due  weight  to  it.  But,  on  any  possible  calcu- 
lation, the  number  of  the  agricultural  class  who  would  be  bene- 
fited by  the  continuance  of  private  land-ownership  is  far 
more  than  off-set  by  the  number  who  would  be  advantaged 
by  its  abolition.  Those  who  advance  this  argument  have  in 
mind  the  conditions  which  prevailed  a  quarter  of  a  century 
ago  rather  than  those  which  now  obtain.  According  to  the 
last  United  States  census  the  total  number  of  persons  engaged 
in  farming  was  7,670,493,  of  whom  only  2,984,306  were  even 
nominal  owners  of  their  farms.  Of  the  latter  a  very  large 
proportion  are  heavily  mortgaged.  The  "territorial  democ- 
racy" is  a  misleading  phrase — a  tradition,  and  nothing  more. 
The  available  arable  land  still  ungranted  is  on  the  verge  of 
becoming  exhausted.  The  number  of  tenant-farmers,  and  the 
landless  class  in  the  country  is  increasing,  and  immense  areas 
have  fallen  into  the  possession  of  railroad  corporations,  land 
companies,  and  individual  speculators,  who  hold  it  at  a  high 
price.  On  this  point  Thomas  P.  Gill  says  in  an  article  on 
"  Landlordism  in  America,"  which  appeared  in  the  JVbrth 
American  JKeview  for  January  1886 : 

When  there  are  no  more  far-distant  patches  of  government  land  to 
be  had  by  the  hardy  settler,  he  will  have  none  but  this  high-priced  land 
to  choose  from.  How  is  he  to  possess  himself  of  it  ?  He  simply  cannot 
possess  himself  of  it.  Never  again  will  such  a  man  have  the  opportunity 
of  winning  by  his  toil  and  his  courage  a  free  home  for  himself  in  the 
United  States.  The  land  will  become  the  privilege  of  capital,  and  the 
hardy  settler  will  have  no  alternative  but  to  rent  a  farm  and  work  it  as 
a  tenant,  with  no  hope  of  coining  nearer  to  being  its  owner  after  a  life- 
time of  labor  than  he  was  the  first  day  he  broke  its  verdure  with  th& 
plow.  Thus,  from  the  day— now  officially  declared  to  be  at  hand — that 
the  public  domain  is  quite  exhausted,  the  manufacture  of  a  tenant- 
£anning  class  will  go  on  in  the  United  States  at  an  enormous  rate.  *  *  * 
It  is  a  fact  that  there  cannot  be  a  moment's  doubt  about — the  tendency 
to  landlordism  in  the  United  States  is  inevitable  and  immense." 

It  is  not  only  the  actual  farmers  of  to-day  we  have  to  con- 
sider, it  is  the  whole  agricultural  class  ;  those  born  and  brought 
up  in  the  country,  or  coming  in  from  abroad,  who  desire  or 
expect  to  farm  on  their  own  accountpfe  the  near  future,  far 


THE  POLITICS  OF  LABOR.  193 

from  being  a  bugbear  and  an  obstacle  to  the  alliance  between 
the  agriculturist  and  the  city  wage-worker,  the  land  nation- 
alization doctrine  will  prove  the  very  strongest  incentive  to 
the  large  majority  of  the  rural  residents  co-operating  with 
organized  labor  for  the  overthrow  of  landlordism.  It  is  man- 
ifestly and  clearly  in  the  interests  of  the  small  farmer  who 
wants  more  land,  of  the  tenant  farmer,  of  the  farmer's  son, 
and  of  the  farm  laborer  that  they  should  have  the  opportunity 
to  obtain  access  to  the  land  locked  up  for  speculative  pur- 
poses, by  the  imposition  of  a  heavy  tax  on  land  values,  so  as  to 
make  it  unprofitable  for  any  one  to  hold  land  which  he  does 
not  cultivate.  Before  long,  urban  labor,  now  fighting  the 
battle  alone,  will  find  an  invaluable  and  invincible  ally  in  the 
\~great  bulk  of  the  farming  class,  whose  interests  as  producers 
outweigh  their  interests  as  landowners^ 


CHAPTER  IX. 

THE    STONE    WHICH    THE    BUILDERS    REJECTED. 

God  never  scooped  the  Mississippi  valley  to  be  the  grave  of  freedom, 
nor  poured  Niagara  for  its  requiem. —  Wendell  Phillips 

LABOR,  in  working  out  its  own  emancipation,  will  regenerate 
the  world.  In  solving  the  labor  problem,  the  other  vexed 
questions  which  have  so  long  pressed  for  solution  will  be  set- 
tled. All  the  various  forms  of  social  and  moral  evil  which 
afflict  humanity  are  traceable  to  caste-rule  and  the  spoliation 
of  the  laboring  class.  War,  intemperance,  prostitution,  and 
crime  are  due  either  to  the  greed  begotten  of  capitalism,  the 
selfishness,  arrogance,  and  luxury  of  the  moneyed  and  influ- 
ential class,  or  the  abject  necessity,  ignorance,  and  debasement 
of  the  disinherited.  With  social  and  political  equality  estab- 
lished, and  every  man  and  woman  secured  in  the  enjoyment 
of  the  full  earnings  of  their  labor,  the  motives  which  prompt 
and  the  conditions  which  foster  these  evils  would  largely 
cease.  - 


194  THE  POLITICS  OF  LABOR. 


Labor  Reform  underlies  all  other  reforms.  To  imagine  that 
drunkenness  and  vice  and  law-breaking  can  be  cured  while  a 
large  part  of  the  population  are  plunged  into  hopeless  degra- 
dation by  the  working  of  the  capitalistic  system  is  the  veriest 
social  quackery.  Temperance  reformers  tell  us  that  drunk- 
enness is  the  great  cause  of  poverty.  The  two  are  closely 
connected,  but  it  is  far  oftener  poverty  that  is  the  cause  of 
drunkenness.  Mental  and  physical  exhaustion,  consequent 
upon  long  hours  of  labor  in  a  vitiated  atmosphere,  naturally 
drive  men  to  seek  relief  in  stimulants.  Unhealthy  domestic 
conditions,  the  filth  and  squalor  of  crowded  tenement  houses 
and  reeking  alleys,  the  evil  examples  and  contaminating 
associations  forced  upon  the  decent  poor  who  find  refuge  in 
such  quarters,  combined  with  the  hopelessness  of  their  lot, 
and  the  feeling  that  struggle  and  strive  as  they  may,  it  is 
impossible  to  better  themselves,  make  social  wrecks  and  out- 
casts of  numbers  who  under  more  favorable  conditions  might 
have  lived  and  died  useful  and  respected  citizens.  The  tem- 
perance reformers,  well-intentioned,  but  superficial  and  pos- 
sessed with  one  idea,  wholly  overlook  these  deep-seated 
causes  of  intemperance.  Full-fed,  handsomely  paid,  and  well- 
conditioned  orators  of  the  Gough  and  Murphy  type  may  draw 
crowds  by  their  eloquence,  and  exhaust  the  powers  of  oratori- 
cal persuasion  to  reform  the  drunkard,  but  the  few  who  can 
be  reached  by  such  methods  are  but  a  drop  in  the  bucket 
compared  with  the  number  who  are  yearly  sinking  into  the 
abyss.  It  is  the  conditions  of  labor  and  living  in  the  great 
cities  that  make  drunkards  and  prostitutes.  The  terrible 
picture  of  the  evils  of  the  lot  of  New  York  working-women 
presented  in  the  report  of  the  New  York  Bureau  of  Labor 
Statistics  for  1885,  is  more  eloquent  in  its  practical  matter-of- 
fact  treatment  of  the  subject  than  the  most  highly-wrought 
denunciations  of  the  social  crime  which  dooms  them  to  sla- 
very or  shame.  Moralists  and  preachers  combat  the  "  social 
evil "  just  as  they  do  intemperance,  by  missions  and  exhorta- 
tions;  and  respectable  society  thinks  that  it  does  its  whole 
duty  by  subscribing  liberally  to  evangelize  the  slums  and 


THE  POLITICS  OF  LABOR.  195 

establish  Magdalen  asylums  and  homes  for  the  fallen.  And 
oftentimes  those  who  give  most  liberally  and  lament  most 
sanctimoniously  the  increase  of  vice,  are  the  grinding  and 
conscienceless  employers  whose  exactions  have  made  the 
lives  of  the  seamstresses  and  shop-girls  in  their  employ 
miserable,  and  driven  them  to  barter  their  honor  for  bread. 

It  is  true  that  the  criminals  and  outcasts  do  not  all  come 
from  the  needy  and  dependent  class.  Professional  criminals 
often  graduate  from  comfortable  homes,  and  the  perpetrators 
of  great  financial  crimes  and  breaches  of  trust,  which  have 
latterly  been  alarmingly  frequent,  are  necessarily  men  of  in- 
fluential positions  and  good  education.  But,  nevertheless, 
the  prevalence  of  crimes  against  property  among  the  class 
who  have  special  advantages  and  opportunities  is  no  less  the 
direct  outcome  of  the  capitalistic  system  than  the  vices  of 
the  degraded  poor. 

/They  are  traceable  to  the  wrong  ideals  of  life  and  worldly 
success  which  are  held  up  before  the  young  from  their  very 
cradles.  The  whole  tendency  of  modern  education — not 
merely  in  the  restricted  sense  of  book-learning,  but  in  the 
broader  significance  which  includes  every  influence  which 
shapes  men's  thoughts  and  contributes  to  their  intellectual 
and  moral  development — is  to  make  rascals.  The  teachings  of 
the  fireside  and  the  school,  the  newspaper  and  the  platform, 
by  inference  if  not  by  precept,  encourage  the  spirit  of  acquisi- 
tiveness. The  boy  from  his  earliest  years  is  exhorted  to  "  be 
somebody" — to  aspire  to  "  rise  in  the  world."  The  examples 
of  men  who  have  become  wealthy  after  the  customary  fashion, 
by  business  shrewdness  or  the  acquisition  of  some  profitable 
monopoly,  are  continually  quoted.  Even  in  the  church  and 
the  Sunday-school  religious  precepts  are  intermingled  with 
worldly-wise  counsel.  A  spurious  Christianity  inculcates  the 
gospel  of  greed  and  grab.  Wealth  is  everywhere  honored 
without  reference  to  the  sources  of  its  acquisition  so  long  as 
its  owners  can  keep  clear  of  the  law,  while  honest  poverty  is 
despised.  Social  position,  political  honors,  public  estimation 
are  all  dependent  on  the  possession  of  money  or  of  talents 


19G  THE  POLITICS  OF  LABOR. 

which  the  owner  is  willing  to  devote  to  the  service  of  capi- 
talism. 

Now,  under  existing  conditions,  this  striving  and  straining 
after  wealth  is  perfectly  natural.  It  is  wasting  breath  to  re- 
iterate the  customary  moral  and  religious  truisms,  which  every 
one  accepts  but  nobody  acts  upon,  with  regard  to  the  vanity 
of  earthly  possessions,  and  the  folly  of  those  who  make  haste 
to  be  rich,  so  long  as  riches  are  not  merely  the  passport  to 
every  means  of  distinction  and  honor,  but  the  only  security 
against  the  abyss  of  wretchedness  and  degradation  into  which 
those  without  other  resources  than  their  labor  often  fall.  It 
would  be  as  effective  to  preach  moderation  and  altruism  to  a 
crowd  upon  a  vessel  in  danger  of  sinking,  rushing  for  the 
boats  and  fighting  for  the  possession  of  life-preservers.  The 
intensity  of  the  strife  has  been  vastly  increased  by  popular 
education,  which,  by  making  the  masses  more  intelligent,  has 
made  them  more  capable  of  looking  ahead  and  anticipating 
the  evils  of  poverty.  The  wholly  uneducated  man  seldom 
concerns  himself  much  about  the  future  ;  but  even  a  mod- 
erate degree  of  education,  with  the  increased  capacities  for 
observation  and  reflection  which  it  brings,  induces  the  habit 
of  anticipation.  This  fear  of  abject  poverty  is  far  from 
being  wholly  selfish.  It  is  interwoven  with,  and  derives  its 
strength  from,  the  warmest  affections  and  most  powerful  emo- 
tions of  our  nature.  Many  a  man  who  would  face  unmoved 
the  prospect  of  an  old  age  of  penury  and  dependence,  is 
daily  tortured  by  anxiety  at  the  thought  of  the  terrible  fate 
which  might  befall  his  family  should  he  be  suddenly  removed 
by  death,  or  overtaken  by  sickness  or  misfortune,  rendering 
him  unable  to  provide  for  them.  In  this  world  of  paradoxes 
and  contradictions  men's  best  and  worst  motives  are 
often  inextricably  mixed.  Could  we  trace  the  secret  incen- 
tives of  the  actions  of  many  who  are  apparently  hard  and 
selfish,  and  destitute  of  kindly  sympathies  in  their  relations 
with  their  fellows,  it  would  often  be  found  that  the  over-mas, 
tering  motive  of  their  lives  was  to  secure  wife  and  children  an 
assured  position  which  should  place  them  above  the  fear  of 


THE  POLITICS  OF  LABOR.  197 

poverty.  It  is  the  possibility  of  beggary  and  wretchedness 
overtaking  those  near  and  dear  to  them  which  is  the  great \ 
stimulus  to  money-getting  in  the  case  of  very  many  who  would 
not  be  influenced  by  love  of  ease,  pleasure,  or  social  distinc- 
tion, or  any  of  the  varied  enjoyments  and  opportunities  whichj 
riches  bring  in  their  train. 

What  a  world  of  terrible  significance  there  is  in  the  common 
phrase  that  a  married  man  has  "  given  hostages  to  fortune ! '' 
Poor  Burns  realized  it  to  the  full  when  he  penned  his  half- 
humorous,  wholly  pathetic  apology  for  accepting  the  beggarly 
pittance  of  an  exciseman's  position  : 

"  These  movin'  things  ca'd  wives  an'  weans 
Wad  move  the  very  hearts  of  stanes." 

To  know  that  failure  in  the  battle  of  life  brings  privation  and 
suffering  untold  to  those  of  your  own  flesh  and  blood,  to 
picture  their  fate  should  bereavement  cut  them  off  from 
their  sole  dependence,  to  follow  them  in  imagination  to  the 
abodes  of  poverty  in  the  crowded  tenement,  or  up  the  stifling 
alley  exposed  to  the  most  revolting  daily  associations  ;  to  fancy 
them  pleading  for  the  bitter  bread  of  charity,  or  seeking  with 
unaccustomed  fingers  to  perform  the  ill-paid  drudgery  which 
alone  offers  the  means  of  existence  to  the  untrained  worker ; 
to  see  them  subjected  to  the  slights  of  fair-weather  friends, 
and  the  insults  and  sneers  which  poverty  that  has  "  seen  bet- 
ter days "  has  always  to  encounter,  struggling  to  maintain 
their  respectability  while  beset  with  temptations  and  sur- 
rounded by  evil  examples — this  is  the  haunting  dread  which 
steels  the  heart  and  stifles  the  conscience  of  many  a  husband 
and  father  in  his  dealings  with  the  world.  Is  it  any  wonder 
that,  with  such  a  peril  ever  present  to  the  minds  of  those  who 
exercise  ordinary  reflection  or  are  capable  of  a  thought  beyond 
the  immediate  requirements  of  the  passing  day,  men  who 
have  others  dependent  on  their  exertions  will  strain  every 
nerve  to  acquire  a  competency,  and  that  the  temptation  to  do 
so  by  illicit  methods,  such  as  the  "  borrowing"  of  trust  funds, 
or  even  engaging  in  crooked  speculations,  appears  to  them  in 
the  light  of  a  providential  opportunity. 


198  THE  POLITICS  OF  LABOR. 

The  current  bourgeois  morality  is  the  fruitful  parent  of 
financial  crime.  When  those  who  have  made  enormous  for- 
tunes by  stock-watering  or  cornering  grain,  by  the  tricks  of 
the  exchange  or  the  purchase  from  venal  legislators  of  im- 
mensely valuable  public  franchises,  by  land-grabbing  or  usury, 
are  not  treated  as  criminals,  but  honored  as  enterprising  citi- 
zens, the  natural  effect  is  to  confuse  the  moral  sense,  and  to 
blur  the  distinction  between  right  and  wrong  in  business  mat- 
ters, otherwise  than  as  it  may  be  preserved  by  the  often  un- 
certain and  always  erratic  and  arbitrary  line  of  legality.  The 
volume  of  unpunishable  financial  crime  is  much  larger  than 
that  of  the  recognized  offenses  against  law  conceived  and  exe- 
cuted in  the  same  spirit.  The  changes  in  the  social  system, 
and  the  tone  of  public  opinion  which  would  either  do  away 
with  the  possibility  or  remove  the  main  incentives  for  the  one 
would  be  equally  effective  as  against  the  other. 

It  has  been  said  that  "you  cannot  make  men  moral  by  act 
of  Parliament."  The  phrase  has  become  hackneyed  in  the 
mouths  of  cynics  and  pessimists,  but  it  embodies  at  least  a 
half  truth  which  no  evolutionist  will  deny.  In  a  politically, 
self-governed  community,  all  law,  to  be  effective,  must  be 
the  outcome  and  embodiment  of  a  public  opinion  strong 
enough  to  enforce  it.  It  must  be  the  expression  ^of  the  will, 
not  of  a  mere  temporary  accidental  majority^ut  of  the  deep- 
seated  and  matured  conviction  of  the  mass.  \  In  the  present 
state  of  public  opinion  no  law,  however  definite  and  drastic, 
however  carefully  drawn  and  hedged  about  with  elaborate 
provisions  for  its  enforcement,  could  establish  a  system  of 
social  equality  and  full  industrial  rights.  The  people  are 
not  prepared  for  it.  What  is  first  needed  is  a  change  of  their 
habits  of  thought,  a  gradual  breaking  with  bourgeois  tra- 
ditions, and  the  adoption  of  the  grander,  nobler  ideal  of  a 
social  condition  in  which  "  all  men's  good  shall  be  each  man's 
rule,"  in  which  poverty  and  wealth  shall  be  alike  unknown, 
and  co-operation  shall  imply  equity  of  distribution  instead  of 
merely  associated  effort.  The  vexed  questions  as  to  the  pre- 
cise relations  of  the  workers  to  the  state,  of  the  greater  or  less 


THE  POLITICS  OF  LABOR. 


199 


degree  of  supervision  or  control  to  be  exercised  by  the  central 
authority,  and  the  details  of  the  mechanism  of  exchange  and 
distribution,  may  very  well  be  left  to  solve  themselves  ac- 
cording to  the  law  of  evolution.  The  present  and  pressing 
work  is  to  so  direct  the  current  of  men's  thoughts  as  to  render 
possible  the  beginnings  of  the  vast  and  complicated  social 
changes  which  are  needed  for  the  regeneration  of  society/ 

That  the  change  is  possible  who  that  has  witnesses  the 
overthrow  of  the  slave  power  and  is  a  spectator  of  the  social 
revolution  now  in  progress  in  Britain  and  Ireland  can  doubt? 
in  the  eyes  of  some  the  written  constitution  of  the  United 
States  presents  an  insuperable  obstacle.  But  there  are  two  or 
three  facts  in  the  constitutional  history  of  the  country  which 
are  significant  of  tremendous  possibilities.  No  paper  con- 
stitution, however  carefully  guarded  against  innovation,  can 
permanently  shape  the  institutions  of  a  people  or  prevent 
their  being  moulded  according  to  the  national  genius  and 
requirements. 

The  framers  of  the  constitution,  in  their  anxiety  to  avoid 
giving  the  people  too  large  a  share  of  power,  provided  for  the 
election  of  the  president,  not  by  the  voters  directly,  but  by 
electors  chosen  by  the  people  of  each  state  specially  for  that 
purpose.  These  electors  at  first  exercised  an  independent 
freedom  of  choice,  but  at  a  very  early  stage  in  the  progress  of 
political  evolution  the  people  demanded  the  right  of  electing 
the  president,  and  practically  nullified  the  provision  entrust- 
ing that  duty  to  the  electors  by  pledging  them  in  advance  to 
vote  for  a  particular  candidate.  Outside  of  and  supplement- 
ary to  the  written  constitution  grew  up  the  national  party 
convention  system,  under  which  bodies  entirely  unknown  to 
the  organic  law,  assumed  the  function  of  selecting  the  men 
between  whose  claims  the  people  on  election  day  decide.  An 
elaborate  and  highly  organized  political  mechanism  has  thus 
been  developed  which  engrosses  the  real  power,  while  the 
recognized  constitutional  officials  only  exercise  a  shadowy 
ministerial  duty. 
Again,  the  written  constitution  makes  no  provision  against 


200  THE  POLITICS  OF  LABOR. 

the  re-election  of  a  president  for  any  number  of  successive 
terms.  Here  again  the  unwritten  law  of  precedent  and 
usage  supplements  the  positive  enactment.  The  feeling 
against  a  third  term  in  thtncase  of  Gen.  Grant,  as  a  menace 
to  political  freedom  and  an  insidious  and  perilous  innovation 
upon  established  custom,  could  hardly  have  been  stronger 
had  the  proposition  involved  a  direct  violation  of  the  docu- 
mentary law. 

Note  another  phase  of  this  curious  accretion  of  usage 
having  all  the  binding  effect  of  law  which  has  spontaneously 
grown  up  around  and  become  incorporated  with  the  consti- 
tutional system  of  the  United  States.  Though,  since  the 
transfer  of  the  real  electing  power  from  the  electoral  college 
to  the  people,  several  thousand  electors  have  be-en  entrusted 
with  the  duty  of  casting  the  formal  vote  for  president  with 
no  other  guarantee  than  a  pledge  of  honor  that  the  views  of 
their  constituents  would  be  carried  out,  in  no  single  instance 
has  that  pledge  been  violated.  Even  in  periods  of  abound- 
ing political  corruption,  when  the  honor  of  politicians  had 
become  a  by-word,  when  other  obligations  to  constituents 
or  to  the  country  were  set  at  naught,  men  of  the  very  same 
class  as  were  trafficking  in  their  political  influence  for  their 
own  pecuniary  benefit  in  other  capacities  have  always  re- 
ligiously observed  the  trust  reposed  in  them  in  the  matter  of 
recording  the  vote  of  those  who  elected  them,  for  presi- 
dential candidates.  Even  in  the  notable  contest  of  '76, 
between  Hayes  and  Tilden,  when  a  single  vote  would  have 
turned  the  scale,  and  millions  of  money  would  have  been 
gladly  paid  for  it,  no  elector  showed  a  disposition  to  betray 
his  trust. 

Now,  supposing  that  the  growth  of  Labor  Reform  senti- 
ment during  the  next  few  years  should  so  change  the  current 
of  men's  ideas  that  a  vital  alteration  in  the  relations  of  cap- 
italism to  labor  and  the  abrogation  of  the  various  forms  of 
monopoly  seemed  as  urgent  as  did  the  securing  of  power  to 
elect  the  president,  and  the  ascendancy  which  wealth  has 
obtained  in  public  affairs  appeared  as  perilous  as  a  presiden- 


THE  POLITICS  OF  LABOR.  201 

tial  third  term ;  supposing,  in  short,  that  the  industrial  situa- 
tion assumed  the  foremost  place  and  party  politics  became  a 
secondary  consideration,  would  not  the  same  determination 
to  assert  the  national  will  irrespective  of  formulas  and 
artificial  restrictions,  which  has  modified  the  constitution 
without  formal  enactment,  result  in  the  development  of  a 
supplementary  or  extra-constitutional  system  ?  Just  what 
shape  it  would  take  it  is  useless  to  speculate  upon.  It  might  be 
a  development  of  the  labor  bureau  system  or  an  outcome  of 
the  proposed  boards  of  arbitration.  It  might  be  unconnected 
in  any  degree  with  the  present  administrative  system,  the 
product  of  organization  among  the  toilers  gradually  taking  on 
little  by  little  the  real  governmental  power,  and  leaving  but 
the  semblance  and  shadow  of  authority  in  the  hands  of  the 
existing  government. 

Why  is  it  that  a  politician  chosen  as  presidential  elector  keeps 
his  pledge  inviolate,  while  the  same  man  elected  to  Congress 
or  the  Senate  trades  his  vote  to  a  monopoly,  or  becomes  a 
member  of  a  ring  for  the  purpose  of  enriching  himself  at  the 
people's  expense  ?  Simply  because  he  knows  that  in  the 
former  case  the  condemnation  of  public  opinion,  which  would 
follow  the  exercise  of  his  undoubted  constitutional  right  of 
absolute  freedom  of  choice,  would  be  so  complete  and  crush- 
ing that  it  would  utterly  destroy  him,  while  ordinary  acts  of 
corruption  are  frequently  condoned.  The  most  profligate  of 
politicians  would  not  dare  to  sell  out  his  party  in  the  matter 
of  electing  a  president,  however  huge  the  bribe  that  might  be 
offered  him.  If  public  opinion  were  as  vigilant,  as  unanimous, 
as  unmistakably  ready  to  visit  swift  and  sure  retribution  up- 
on the  betrayer  of  labor's  rights,  whether  he  acted  within  strict 
constitutional  and  legal  limits  or  not,  as  it  is  in  regard  to  the 
violation  of  the  presidential  electors'  pledge,  how  the  entire 
political  situation,  in  its  relations  to  the  industrial  system, 
would  be  transformed ! 

No,  you  cannot  make  men  moral  by  act  of  Parliament,  nor 
even  of  Congress ;  neither  can  you  by  paper  constitutions  pre- 
vent the  national  genius  and  the  popular  sense  of  right  from 


THE  POLITICS  OF  LABOR. 

moulding  institutions  and  finding  expression  in  precedent  and 
usage  which  modify  or  supersede  the  written  law.  But  though 
the  power  of  law,  when  confronted  by  a  hostile  or  indifferent 
public  opinion,  may  have  been  over-estimated  by  some  classes 
of  reformers,  it  is  well  not  to  run  into  the  opposite  extreme 
of  undervaluing  it.  Law  and  public  opinion  act  and  react  on 
each  other.  Every  legal  enactment  in  support  of  a  great  so- 
cial reform,  even  though  it  merely  proves  the  high -water-mark 
of  a  temporary  wave  of  enthusiasm,  gives  an  impetus  to  the 
cause.  A  recoil  may  take  place,  but  the  triumph  once  achiev- 
ed is  a  stimulus  to  further  exertion,  and  an  inducement  to 
perseverance  until  the  end  crowns  the  work.  It  may  fail  of 
the  immediate  object  sought,  but  it  helps  in  no  small  degree 
to  educate  and  ripen  public  sentiment,  even  though  it  may 

n';  represent  it. 
[t  is  precisely  this  educational  influence  of  legislation  which 
is  needed  at  the  present  stage  of  the  Labor  Reform  movement,  j 
Any  measures  now  attainable  are  valuable  rather  as  vantage 
ground  in  the  contest  which  must  be  fought  out,  inch  by  inch, 
for  the  overthrow  of  capitalism,  as  new  points  of  departure, 
as  concessions  of  the  principle  for  which  we  are  contending, 
to  be  one  day  extended  and  amplified  into  the  basis  for  a  new 
social  order,  rather  than  for  any  immediate  beneficial  result 
to  be  expected. 

To  change  the  direction  of  the  current  is  the  all-important 
thing,  trusting  to  the  future  to  give  it  volume  and  impetus. 

The  times  are  ripe  for  change.  Old  things  are  passing 
away.  The  prejudices  and  dissensions  which  have  long  kept 
apart  those  who  should  be  united  are  dying  out.  Party, 
and  sectarian,  and  national  differences,  which  have  alienated 
the  working  classes  from  each  other,  are  losing  their  force. 
The  grand  idea  of  the  solidarity  of  labor  is  dawning  upon  the 
minds  of  the  mass.  Their  thoughts  are  quickened  by  the 
closeness  of  contact  and  thoroughness  of  industrial  organi- 
zation, necessitated  by  the  modern  system  of  industry  and 
commerce.  Ideas  spread  literally  with  lightning  rapidity. 
Wherever,  throughout  the  broad  world,  an  advance  is  made 


THE  POLITICS  OF  LABOR.  203 

by  the  workers  in  the  struggle  for  their  rights,  their  brethren 
elsewhere  catch  the  impulse  and  are  stirred  by  the  inspiration 
of  victory.  The  Labor  Reform  movement  in  America  owes 
much  to  the  Irish  Home  Rule  agitation.  Whatever  of  moral 
support  and  material  aid  the  Irish  and  their  friends  in  Amer- 
ica have  contributed  to  the  struggling  peasantry  in  Ireland, 
has  been  more  than  repaid  by  the  influence  which  that 
agitation  has  had  on  the  cause  at  home.  The  watchword  of 
"  the  land  for  the  people  "  has  been  caught  up  and  re-echoed 
on  this  side  of  the  Atlantic,  giving  the  movement  the  scope 
and  comprehensiveness  which  it  formerly  lacked.  In  our  turn 
we  shall  repeat  history  by  making  American  social  freedom 
the  exemplar  for  the  Old  World  nations,  just  as,  in  the  early 
days  of  the  Republic,  its  newly  acquired  political  liberty  was 
the  beacon-light  of  the  nations  that  sat  in  darkness. 

Hitherto,  the  appeals  of  Labor  Reformers  have  been  main- 
ly addressed  to  the  intelligent  self-interest  of  the  working- 
classes.  They  have  been  exhorted  to  forego  the  opportunities 
of  temporary  personal  advantage,  which  the  competitive  sys- 
tem offers  to  those  of  superior  abilities,  for  the  sake  of  securing 
the  general  good.  Trade-unionism,  in  its  cruder  forms,  sub- 
stituted a  class  selfishness  for  the  personal  selfishness,  which  is 
the  animating  motive  under  unrestricted  competition.  Each 
trade  sought  to  promote  its  own  interests  merely.  In  its  later 
developments,  the  circle  of  sympathy  and  co-operative  effort 
has  gradually  broadened,  as  the  great  truth  of  the  common  in- 
terest of  all  workers  has  become  better  appreciated.  There  is 
much  progress  still  to  make  in  this  direction.  Many  of  the 
selfish,  debasing  teachings  of  political  economy  must  be  un- 
learned. In  tracing  the  moral  and  social  development  of  man 
we  note  one  unvarying  rule— that,  in  proportion  as  men  become 
enlightened,  they  realize  that  the  well-being  of  the  individual 
depends  upon  the  well-being  of  the  mass. 

In  a  condition  of  savagery  or  semi-barbarism,  life  and  prop- 
erty are  not  secure.  Existence  is  a  round  of  perpetual 
watchfulness.  Every  man  needs  to  be  continually  on  the 
alert  and  ready  to  defend  himself.  Tribal  wars,  individual 


204  THE  POLITICS  OF  LABOR. 

blood-feuds,  raids,  massacres,  and  ambuscades  are  the  custom 
ary  incidents  of  life.  To  be  a  stranger  is  to  be  an  enemy.  The 
continual  sense  of  danger  and  the  dread  of  being  surprised  and 
taken  at  a  disadvantage  developed  a  keenness  of  observation, 
a  sharpness  of  sight  and  hearing,  and  a  fertility  of  resource 
unknown  in  civilized  existence.  As  nations  have  gradually 
emerged  from  barbarism,  violence  has  been  repressed ;  acts 
of  open  physical  aggression  upon  the  weak  and  helpless  are  no 
longer  tolerated.  Quarrels  are  settled  by  courts  and  laws,  in- 
stead of  by  the  sword.  The  place  of  a  nation  in  the  scale  of 
civilization  is  judged  mainly  by  the  extent  to  which  its  laws 
and  institutions  afford  protection  to  life  and  property,  and 
provide  a  legal  remedy  for  every  acknowledged  form  of 
wrong.  If  a  murder  or  a  robbery  is  committed,  the  whole 
community  is  anxious  for  the  apprehension  and  punishment 
of  the  criminal,  even  if  the  victim  be  a  stranger,  without 
friends  or  influence. 

Why? 

Because  every  intelligent  man  knows  that  in  this  sphere,  at 
least,  "an  injury  to  one  is  the  concern  of  all,"  that  prompt- 
itude and  certainty  in  the  prevention  or  punishment  of  crime 
committed  against  others  are  the  best  guarantee  for  his  own 
safety.  Every  one  feels  that  laxity  in  the  enforcement  of  law 
menaces  his  personal  interest.  In  a  highly  civilized  society, 
feelings  of  humanity  and  pity  may  enter  largely  into  the  zeal 
shown  in  bringing  the  perpetrators  of  crime  to  justice,  but 
the  prevailing  motive  is  an  enlightened  self-interest. 

Supposing  the  attempt  were  made  to  impress  a  marauding 
savage  chieftain  with  the  advantages  of  civilized  laws  against 
robbery  and  murder.  His  apparent  self-interest  would  at  once 
be  enlisted  against  the  innovation.  "  I  am  stronger  and  braver, 
and  have  more  followers  than  my  neighbors.  I  should  be  a 
fool  not  to  take  their  cattle  and  gold-dust  when  I  can,  and 
kill  them  if  they  resist.  Laws  against  robbery  and  murder 
would  be  a  good  thing  for  the  weak  and  cowardly ;  not  for 
me."  This  would  be  the  train  of  reasoning  that  would 
naturally  suggest  itself  to  the  savage  mind. 


THE  POLITICS  OF  LABOR.  205 

But,  apart  from  morality  altogether,  no  citizen  of  a  civilized 
state,  except  the  few  utterly  reckless  and  desperate,  would 
deliberately  wish  to  see  all  law  abrogated  and  the  right  of 
the  strongest  established.  The  vast  majority  realize  that  if 
life  and  property  were  dependent  upon  the  ability  of  the  in- 
dividual to  defend  them,  no  amount  of  personal  superiority, 
in  point  of  strength  or  activity,  could  ever  give  that  degree 
of  security  that  the  law  does.,  and  that  the  privilege  of  com- 
mitting aggressions  at  will  upon  their  weaker  neighbors  would 
be  no  compensation  for  the  continual  apprehension  and  peril 
of  a  condition  of  social  anarchy,.  It  would  need  no  argument 
to  convince  them  of  the  waste  and  loss  and  general  ruin 
which  would  follow  such  a  reversion  to  barbarism. 

Now,  just  as  in  those  matters  now  within  the  purview  of 
Government,  this  intelligent,  far-sighted  selfishness  which 
underlies  our  present  civilization  has  taken  the  place  of  the 
narrow,  purblind  selfishness  of  the  savage  which  looks  only  at 
the  immediate  gratification  of  his  animal  propensities,  so,  in 
the  industrial  sphere,  the  idea  of  social  co-operation  will  super- 
sede competition.  The  imagined  personal  interests  of  many 
are  enlisted  on  the  side  of  the  existing  system.  Tried  by  the 
standard  of  a  higher  enlightenment  than  is  now  general,  they 
will  be  seen  to  be  as  thoroughly  deceptive  as  the  advantages 
of  a  social  state  in  which  might  makes  right.  The  advantage 
is  real  and  tangible  enough  as  compared  with  the  position  of 
the  weaker,  but  that  is  all.  As  contrasted  with  the  security 
and  prosperity  which  all  might  enjoy  if  the  social  struggle  in 
which  every  man's  hand  is  against  his  neighbor  were  to  give 
place  to  harmonious  universal  effort  for  the  common  good, 
they  are  delusive  and  unreal. 

To  how  many  thousands  who  have  strained  every  nerve  to 
become  wealthy  have  riches  proved  a  source  of  care  and 
anxiety !  How  many  who  have  plunged  into  the  whirl  of 
stock-gambling,  or  devoted  themselves  body  and  soul  to  mer- 
cantile speculations,  have  been  driven  to  madness  and  suicide 
by  the  constant  strain  and  worry,  the  alternations  between 
hope  an4  despair,  the  brooding  over  losses,  the  fierce,  feverish 


206  THE  POLITICS  OF  LABOR. 

excitement  of  the  game !  The  brilliant  financial  successes 
envied  by  the  world  are  frequently  purchased  at  the  price  of 
shattered  nerves,  wrecked  constitutions,  and  premature  old 
age  and  decrepitude.  When  gained,  a  fortune  can  only  be 
kept  by  ceaseless  vigilance,  and  is  often  only  a  burden  or  a 
Nemesis  to  its  possessor.  The  bankruptcy  records  show  what 
an  enormously  large  proportion  of  those  who  have  money  at 
their  command  yearly  succumb  to  the  stress  of  competition. 
All  great  cities  are  full  of  social  wrecks  and  failures — men 
who  began  life  with  ample  resources  and  brilliant  prospects, 
but  whose  fate  illustrates  the  familiar  commonplaces  of  the 
moralist  as  to  the  uncertainty  of  riches  and  the  ups  and  downs 
of  life. 

This  phase  of  the  subject  is  customarily  presented  as  a  sort 
of  offset  to  the  admitted  evils  of  poverty  and  an  inducement 
to  the  poor  to  be  content  with  their  lot.  As  well  might  the 
miserable  lives  and  deaths  of  tyrants  be  quoted  as  a  reason 
why  the  subjects  of  the  Czar  of  Russia  ought  to  be  satisfied 
with  the  system  which  puts  their  lives  and  liberties  at  the 
mercy  of  a  capricious  despot.  That  slaveholders  live  in  a 
continual  fear  of  a  servile  insurrection,  and  frequently  come 
to  poverty  owing  to  the  idleness  and  un thrift  begotten  of  the 
system,  does  not  make  it  any  more  tolerable  for  the  bondsman, 
though  it  does  illustrate  the  workings  of  the  principle  of 
eternal  justice.  All  oppression  and  injustice  inevitably  react 
upon  the  class  which  upholds  them  for  their  own  apparent 
benefit.  Instead  of  the  anxieties  and  misfortunes  attendant 
upon  wealth  or  the  pursuit  of  wealth  being  regarded  as  a 
compensation  for  the  ills  of  poverty  and  a  justification  of 
existing  inequalities,  they  afford  an  additional  reason  for 
working  for  the  overthrow  of  social  arrangements  under 
which  even  the  class  who  think  they  are  benefited  by  conr 
petition  are  really  the  losers  by  it. 

The  poet  Moore,  in  his  series  of  trenchant  political  satires 
entitled  "Fables  for  the  Holy  Alliance,"  tells, for  the  benefit 
of  the  despots  of  Europe,  the  story  of  a  supposed  attempt 
made  by  the  Mahometan  conqueror  of  Persia  to  suppress  the 


THE  POLITICS  OF  LABOR.  207 

religion  of  theGhebevs  by  extinguishing  the  sacred  fire  which 
was  the  object  of  their  worship.  After  other  means  had 
failed  it  was  proposed  to  keep  the  flames  in  check  by  the 
application  of  extinguishers,  but  in  the  end  the  extinguishers 
themselves,  being  made  of  combustible  material,  were  ignited, 
and  the  flames  blazed  out  more  fiercely  than  ever.  The  appli- 
cation to  the  state  of  European  affairs  and  the  cherished 
methods  of  repression  by  standing  armies,  penal  statutes,  and 
the  whole  machinery  of  Imperialism,  is  obvious. 

For  even  soldiers  sometimes  think; 

Nay,  colonels  have  been  heard  to  reason; 
And  reasoners,  whether  clad  in  pink, 
Or  red,  or  blue,  are  on  the  brink 

(Nine  cases  out  of  ten)  of  treason. 

The  fable  and  its  moral  are  equally  applicable  to  the  in- 
dustrial situation  to  day.  The  "  colonels"  of  the  garrison  of 
capitalism,  leaders  of  those  intellectual  forces  which  have 
hitherto  been  depended  upon  to  maintain  the  existing  social 
order  against  attack,  are  beginning  to  reason ;  and  in  some 
quarters  the  extinguishers  of  the  press  and  the  platform — the 
church  and  the  college — are  taking  fire.  Generous  and  unsel- 
fish spirits  like  William  Morris  and  H.  M.  Hyndman,  of 
England,  have  thrown  off  the  traditions  of  social  caste,  and 
shaken  themselves  free  from  the  entanglements  of  self-interest 
to  make  the  people's  cause  their  own.  Labor  Reform  is  not 
a  class  question.  It  appeals  to  the  sympathies  and  the  judg- 
ment of  every  reflecting  man  who  has  the  welfare  of  humanity 
at  heart,  and  apprehends  that  even-handed  justice  will  surely  in 
the  end  average  every  form  of  social  and  national  wrong- 
doing. It  is  the  cause  of  every  man  who  believes  in  popular 
liberties  and  the  permanency  of  Democratic  institutions,  now 
menaced  by  the  growth  of  an  oligarchy,  of  wealth,  and  weak- 
ened by  the  insidious  and  corrupting  influence  of  capitalism. 

Our  politics,  literature,  and  society  need  the  regenerating 
influence  of  a  great  cause.  The  decline  of  oratory  and  poetry 
and  art,  the  Dearth  of  anything  like  real  leadership  in  public 


208  THE  POLITICS  OF  LABOR. 

affairs,  the  absence  of  sincerity,  simplicity,  and  manliness, 
and  the  prevalence  of  cynicism  arid  snobbery  in  the  social  life 
of  the  wealthy  and  educated  class  show  the  need  of  an  up- 
heaval, which  will  purify  and  ennoble  the  national  life  by  the 
generous  impulses  and  loftier  ideals  of  the  conflict. 

The  world  of  society  and  culture  is  full  of  men  and  women, 
originally  of  good  purposes  and  high  motives,  who  have  lost 
faith  in  themselves  and  in  humanity.  On  entering  life  they 
had  set  their  hearts  on  a  "  career."  They  resolved  to  achieve 
something  beyond  mere  money-making.  They  had  ideas  above 
social  frivolities  and  fooleries.  It  was  the  dream  of  their 
youth  to  make  a  name  for  themselves  in  literature  or  art,  to 
become  the  advocates  of  some  great  reform,  to  do  their  share 
in  the  work  of  popular  enlightenment,  to  rouse  and  thrill  the 
apathetic  masses  by  their  powerful  appeals  in  speech  or  writing. 
They  liave  failed,  and  disappointment  has  made  them  sour  and 
morbid.  They  have  quickly  discovered  on  entering  their 
chosen  path  that  the  way  to  real  accomplishment  was  rough 
and  steep,  the  reward  scant  and  uncertain  ;  and  under  the 
pressure,  perhaps  of  necessity,  perhaps  of  the  influence  of  a 
sordid  atmosphere,  they  have  gradually  sunk  to  the  level  of 
their  surroundings.^  The  high  aims  with  which  they  set  out 
have  been  forgotten  in  the  struggle  for  temporary  success  and 
social  position.  The  orator  who  was  to  have  stirred  the 
people  by  his  fearless  and  forcible  presentation  of  great  truths 
has  become  the  political  hack  or  the  quibbling  lawyer.  The 
would-be  poet  or  philosopher  is  a  journalist  whose  pen  is  at 
the  service  of  the  highest  bidder.  The  aspiring  young  woman 
who  hoped  to  do  for  the  oppressed  of  her  own  sex  what 
Harriet  Beecher  Stowe  did  for  the  negro  has  become  the  leader 
of  a  "  society "  clique.  The  ardent  youths  who,  when  at 
college,  hoped  to  play  leading  parts  on  the  stage  of  life,  have 
developed  into  club-loungers  and  dilettanti,  eaten  up  with 
ennui  and  discontent,  railing  at  the  barrenness  and  sordidness 
of  the  age,  and  the  lack  of  opportunities  for  noble  and  heroic 
effort.  The  fashionable  culture  which  gives  polish  of  expres- 
sion and  keen  appreciation  of  literary  form,  which  develops 


THE  POLITICS  OF  LA&Oft.  209. 

the  tastes  and  susceptibilities  to  a  refinement  bordering  upon 
effeminacy,  which-  looks  backward  to  past  or  passing  systems 
of  thought,  instead  of  forward  to  the  future  for  its  inspirations, 
finds  vent  in  such  lackadaisical  whimpering  over  its  vanished 
ideals  as  Matthew  Arnold's  lamentation. 

Ah,  if  it  be  past  take  away 

At  least  the  restlessness,  the  pain. 
Be  man  henceforth  no  more  a  prey 

To  these  out-dated  stings  again  I 
The  nobleness  of  grief  is  gone. 
Ah,  leave  us  not  the  fret  alone! 
#        #        #         *         #        #        # 
Achilles  ponders  in  his  tent; 

The  kings  of  modern  thought  are  dumb; 
Silent  they  are  though  not  content, 

And  wait  to  see  the  future  come. 
They  have  the  grief  men  had  of  yore, 
But  they  contend  and  cry  no  more . 

Just  think  of  it !  In  this  last  quarter  of  the  nineteenth 
century,  when  the  world  is  convulsed  with  the  most  far-reach- 
ing and  momentous  question  in  all  history — the  right  of  the 
people  to  the  means  of  life;  when  popular  education  and  en- 
franchisement have  stirred  the  masses  with  a  new  impulse,  and 
men  on  all  sides  are  questioning  the  justice  of  the  system  that 
makes  a  fraction  of  society  wealthy,  while  the  great  majori- 
ty are  doomed  to  hopeless  poverty  ;  when  the  ruling  forces 
are  confronted  with  a  growing  demand  for  a  readjustment 
of  the  laws  which  foster  this  inequality  ;  when,  if  ever,  all  that 
is  unselfish  and  thoughtful  and  heroic  and  high-minded  has 
the  grandest  of  opportunities  for  noble  and  enduring  work 
for  humanity,  the  so-called  cultured  and  intellectual  class  are 
bemoaning  the  emptiness  and  hollowness  of  modern  life,  and 
remain  sunk  in  ignominious  apathy.  Could  anything  show 
more  forcibly  how  the  selfishness  of  capitalism  has  eaten  out 
the  very  heart  of  modern  scholarship  and  refinement,  and 
stifled  the  natural  promptings  of  duty  and  sympathy  which 
should  rally  them  with  generous  enthusiasm  to  the  side  of 
the  struggling  poor?  j^ 


210  TJ1E  POLITICS  Of9  LABOR. 

The  stone  which  the  builders  rejected,  the  same  shall  become 
the  head  of  the  corner.  The  influence  which  shall  breathe 
the  breath  of  life  into  the  dry  bones  of  literature  and  scholar- 
ship must  come  from  below  ;  from  the,  as  yet,  largely  inartic- 
ulate aspirations,  hopes,  and  strivings  of  the  people  after  fuller 
andjuster  conditions,  an  ampler  life,  a  more  sympathetic,  fra- 
ternal, and  comprehensive  interpretation  of  democracy. 

Here  and  now  is  the  heroic  age  !  The  social  atmosphere 
is  surcharged  with  the  electricity  of  the  coming  storm.  In 
the  issue  now  presented  all  for  which  the  pioneers  of  freedom 
have  fought  and  its  martyrs  suffered,  converges  and  culminates. 
Last  and  crowning  stage  of  the  battle  for  human  rights,  what 
nobler,  grander  purpose  could  animate  the  lover  of  his  kind  ? 
what  loftier  impulse  could  stir  the  heart,  inspire  the  brain, 
nerve  the  hand,  or  touch,  as  with  a  live  coal  from  the  altar 
of  liberty,  the  lips,  than  the  resolve  to  do  and  dare  in  such  a 
cause  ? 

Young  man  !  entering  on  the  world's  stage  of  action,  full  of 
high  hopes  and  generous  aspirations,  and  bent  upon  a  career 
of  usefulness  which  will  enable  you  in  dying  to  leave  the 
world  better  and  brighter  for  your  having  lived  in  it,  can  you 
withhold  your  aid  from  this  movement  ?  You  have,  no  doubt, 
often  felt  your  heart  thrilled  with  emotion  on  reading  of  the 
trials  and  triumphs  of  the  patriots  and  reformers  of  bygone 
times.  You  in  imagination  have  inarched  shoeless  and  rag- 
ged and  half-starved  through  the  snows  of  Valley  Forge  with 
the  patriot  army  of  the  Revolution  ;  you  have  faced  the 
British  bayonets  at  Bunker  Hill,  and  shared  in  the  triumph 
at  Yorktown.  You  have  listened  spell-bound  to  the  eloquence 
of  Patrick  Henry,  and  stood  in.  spirit  among  the  signers  of 
the  Declaration  of  Independence.  You  have  died  on  the 
scaffold  with  John  Brown,  and  confronted  with  Lloyd  Garri- 
son the  clamors  and  menaces  of  angry  mobs,  that  the  slave 
might  be  free.  You  have  sprung  to  arms  at  the  call  of  Abra- 
ham Lincoln,  rolled  back  the"  tide  of  rebel  victory  at  Gettys- 
burg, marched  with  Sherman  to  the  sea,  and  weltered  amid 
the  carnage  of  the  Wilderness.  "  Ah,  had  I  lived  in  such 


POLITICS  OF  LABOR*  211 

times/'  you  have  said  to  yourself,  "I  too  would  have  been 
ready  to  strive,  to  suffer,  to  die  for  freedom.  Then,  indeed, 
the  intensity  of  purpose,  the  joy  of  conflict  and  accomplish- 
ment, the  grand  scope  of  the  aims  to  be  achieved  would  have 
made  life  worth  living,  death  worth  dying." 

Look  around  you.  Seek  not  inspiration  from  the  past, 
save  as  far  as  its  traditions  and  examples  may  serve  to  nurture 
the  firmness  of  moral  fiber,  the  quenchless  ardor  and  en- 
thusiasm for  freedom  by  which  alone  the  progress  of  human- 
ity is  attained.  If  in  the  wrongs  and  shames  of  the  living, 
struggling  world  to-day  you  find  nothing  to  rouse  you  to 
action,  if  the  appeals  of  the  poor  and  the  disinherited  for 
justice  strike  no  responsive  chord  in  your  heart,  if  any  coarse- 
ness or  crudeness,  ignorance  or  perversity  on  their  part 
repels  you,  if  the  supposed  requirements  of  your  position,  the 
desire  to  stand  well  with  "  society  "  or  the  dread  of  conven- 
tional opinion  holds  you  aloof,  then  rest  assured  that  in  no 
age  and  under  no  circumstances  would  you  have  risked 
means,  or  life  or  limb  in  the  cause  of  the  weak  against  the 
oppressor.  He  who  does  not  instinctively  take  the  part  of  the 
railroad  striker  in  Chicago,  the  miner  in  Pennsylvania,  the 
starving  New  York  seamstress  and  the  rack-rented  Connaught 
peasant,  without  stopping  to  inquire  whether  every  means 
by  which  redress  has  been  sought  has  been  invariably  pru- 
dent or  justifiable,  would  have  been  a  time-server  and  a 
recreant  at  any  critical  stage  of  the  eternal  battle  of  right 
against  might. 

Confused  issues  and  wrong-headed  methods,  the  treachery 
of  professed  friends  and  the  plausibility  of  defenses  for  exist- 
ing evils,  when  and  where  have  these  been  wanting  in  con- 
nection with  any  great  reform  movement  ?  What  noble 
cause  has  not  been  again  and  again  wounded  in  the  house  of 
its  friends,  misrepresented  by  its  enemies,  outlawed  by  the 
respectability  and  learning  and  social  aristocracy  of  the  land  ? 
What  worker  for  the  elevation  of  mankind,  however  buoyed 
up  to  tireless  effort  by  an  unshaken  trust  in  the  final  triumph 
of  right,  but  must  at  times  feel  the  reaction  of  despondency 


212  THE  POLITICS  OF  L 

and  be  disposed  to  ask  "  What  good  ?  "  The  old,  old  prob- 
lem of  life,  the  sphinx-enigma,  with  destruction  as  the 
penalty  of  failure  to  answer  it  aright !  Let  the  profounder 
insight  and  firmer  faith  of  the  one  American  poet  through 
whom  the  fullest  and  highest  meaning  of  Democracy  has 
found  utterance  give  it  solution  : 

O  me  !  O  life — of  the  questions  of  these  recurring, 

Of  the  endless  trains  of  the  faithless,  of  cities  filled  with  the    foolish, 

Of  myself  forever  reproach  ing  myself  (for  who  more  foolish  than  I 

and  who  more  faithless  ?) 

,  Of  eyes  that  vainly  crave  the  light — of  the  objects  mean — of  the  strug- 
gle ever  renewed ; 

Of  the  poor  results  of  all — of  the  plodding  and  sordid  crowds   I  see 
around  me, 

Of  the  empty  and  useless    years  of  the  rest — with  the  rest  me  inter- 
twined ; 

The  question,  O  me  !  so  sad  recurring — What  good  amid  these,  O  me, 
O  life? 

ANSWER. 

That  you  are  here— that  life  exists  and  identity, 

That  the  powerful  play  goes  on  and  you  will  contribute  a  verse. 


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